Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79.
Passing St. Helena
By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (18361907)A
Haunted forever by an Emperor!
Methinks ’t were meet that such a royal ghost
Should pace these gloomy battlements by night!
—The ship veered off, and we passed out to sea:
And in the first fair moonrise of the month,
I watched the island, till it seemed a speck
No bigger than Astarte. Year by year,
The picture came and went upon my brain,
Like frost-work on the windows: in my dreams
I saw those jagged turrets of dull rock
Uplifted in the moonlight; saw the gulls
Darting in sudden circles; heard the low
And everlasting anthem of the sea!
And from the nether world a voice would come,
Here did they bring the Corsican, and here
Died the chained eagle by these dismal cliffs!