The Enviable Isles

by Herman Melville

From "Rammon."

Through storms you reach them and from
    storms are free.
  Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue,
But, nearer, green; and, on the marge, the sea
  Makes thunder low and mist of rainbowed
    dew.
But, inland, where the sleep that folds the hills
A dreamier sleep, the trance of God, instills—
  On uplands hazed, in wandering airs
    aswoon,
Slow-swaying palms salute love's cypress tree
  Adown in vale where pebbly runlets croon
A song to lull all sorrow and all glee.
Sweet-fern and moss in many a glade are here.
  Where, strewn in flocks, what cheek-flushed
    myriads lie
Dimpling in dream—unconscious slumberers
    mere,
  While billows endless round the beaches die.