Frederic William Henry Myers (1843–1901)

ATLANTID islands, phantom-fair,

Throned on the solitary seas,

Immersed in amethystine air,

Haunt of Hesperides!

Farewell! I leave Madeira thus

Drowned in a sunset glorious,

The Holy Harbour fading far

Beneath a blaze of cinnabar.

Then all is twilight; pile on pile

The scattered flocks of cloudland close,

An alabaster wall, erewhile

Much redder than the rose!—

Falls like a sleep on souls forspent

Majestic Night’s abandonment;

Wakes like a waking life afar

Hung o’er the sea one eastern star.

O Nature’s glory, Nature’s youth,

Perfected sempiternal whole!

And is the World’s in very truth

An impercipient Soul?

Or doth that Spirit, past our ken,

Live a profounder life than men,

Awaits our passing days, and thus

In secret places calls to us?

O fear not thou, whate’er befall

Thy transient individual breath;—

Behold, thou knowest not at all

What kind of thing is Death:

And here indeed might Death be fair,

If Death be dying into air,—

If souls evanish’d mix with thee,

Illumined Heaven, eternal Sea.