From
Collected Poems by Herman Melville
(Penguin Books, 2006) : from
John Marr and other sailors (1888)
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, strown_ in flocks, what cheek-flushed myriads lie
Dimpling in dream --- unconscious slumberers mere,
While billows endless round the beaches die.
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