Full slowly, then,
The mother rose, and ever kept her eyes
Upon her little child.  “You freakish maid,”
Said she, “now mark me, if I call you one,
You shall not scold nor make him take you far.”

“I only want,—­you know I only want,”
The girl replied, “to go and play awhile
Upon the sand by Lagos.”  Then she turned
And muttered low, “Mother, is this the girl
Who saw the island?” But the mother frowned. 
“When may she go to it?” the daughter asked. 
And Gladys, following them, gave all her mind
To hear the answer.  “When she wills to go;
For yonder comes to shore the ferry boat.” 
Then Gladys turned to look, and even so
It was; a ferry boat, and far away
Reared in the offing, lo, the purple peaks
Of her loved island.

Then she raised her arms,
And ran toward the boat, crying out, “O rare,
The island! fair befall the island; let
Me reach the island.”  And she sprang on board,
And after her stepped in the freakish maid
And the fair mother, brooding o’er her child;
And this one took the helm, and that let go
The sail, and off they flew, and furrowed up
A flaky hill before, and left behind
A sobbing snake-like tail of creamy foam;
And dancing hither, thither, sometimes shot
Toward the island; then, when Gladys looked,
Were leaving it to leeward.  And the maid
Whistled a wind to come and rock the craft,
And would be leaning down her head to mew
At cat-fish, then lift out into her lap
And dandle baby-seals, which, having kissed,
She flung to their sleek mothers, till her own
Rebuked her in good English, after cried,
“Luff, luff, we shall be swamped.”  “I will not luff,”
Sobbed the fair mischief; “you are cross to me.” 
“For shame!” the mother shrieked; “luff, luff, my dear;
Kiss and be friends, and thou shalt have the fish
With the curly tail to ride on.”  So she did,
And presently a dolphin bouncing up,
She sprang upon his slippery back,—­“Farewell,”
She laughed, was off, and all the sea grew calm.

Then Gladys was much happier, and was ’ware
In the smooth weather that this woman talked
Like one in sleep, and murmured certain thoughts
Which seemed to be like echoes of her own. 
She nodded, “Yes, the girl is going now
To her own island.  Gladys poor?  Not she! 
Who thinks so?  Once I met a man in white,
Who said to me, ’The thing that might have been
Is called, and questioned why it hath not been;
And can it give good reason, it is set
Beside the actual, and reckoned in
To fill the empty gaps of life.’  Ah, so
The possible stands by us ever fresh,
Fairer than aught which any life hath owned,
And makes divine amends.  Now this was set
Apart from kin, and not ordained a home;
An equal;—­and not suffered to fence in
A little plot of earthly good, and say,
‘Tis mine’; but in bereavement of the part,
O, yet to taste the whole,—­to understand
The grandeur of the story, not to feel
Satiate with good possessed, but evermore
A healthful hunger for the great idea,
The beauty and the blessedness of life.