“Through open solitudes, unbounded meads,
  Where, wading on breast-high in yellow bloom,
Untamed of man, the shy white lama feeds—­
  There would I journey and forget my doom;
Or far, O far as sunrise I would see
The level prairie stretch away from me!

“Or I would sail upon the tropic seas,
  Where fathom long the blood-red dulses grow,
Droop from the rock and waver in the breeze,
  Lashing the tide to foam; while calm below
The muddy mandrakes throng those waters warm,
And purple, gold, and green, the living blossoms swarm.”

So of my father I did win consent,
  With importunities repeated long,
To make that duty which had been my bent,
  To dig with strangers alien tombs among,
And bound to them through desert leagues to pace. 
Or track up rivers to their starting-place.

For this I had done battle and had won,
  But not alone to tread Arabian sands,
Measure the shadows of a southern sun,
  Or dig out gods in the old Egyptian lands;
But for the dream wherewith I thought to cope—­
The grief of love unmated with love’s hope.

And now I would set reason in array,
  Methought, and fight for freedom manfully,
Till by long absence there would come a day
  When this my love would not be pain to me;
But if I knew my rosebud fair and blest
I should not pine to wear it on my breast.

The days fled on; another week should fling
  A foreign shadow on my lengthening way;
Another week, yet nearness did not bring
  A braver heart that hard farewell to say. 
I let the last day wane, the dusk begin,
Ere I had sought that window lighted from within.

Sinking and sinking, O my heart! my heart! 
  Will absence heal thee whom its shade doth rend? 
I reached the little gate, and soft within
  The oriel fell her shadow.  She did lend
Her loveliness to me, and let me share
The listless sweetness of those features fair.

Among thick laurels in the gathering gloom,
  Heavy for this our parting, I did stand;
Beside her mother in the lighted room,
  She sitting leaned her cheek upon her hand
And as she read, her sweet voice floating through
The open casement seemed to mourn me an adieu.

Youth! youth! how buoyant are thy hopes! they turn,
  Like marigolds, toward the sunny side. 
My hopes were buried in a funeral urn,
  And they sprung up like plants and spread them wide;
Though I had schooled and reasoned them away,
They gathered smiling near and prayed a holiday.

Ah, sweetest voice! how pensive were its tones,
  And how regretful its unconscious pause! 
“Is it for me her heart this sadness owns,
  And is our parting of to-night the cause? 
Ah, would it might be so!” I thought, and stood
Listening entranced among the underwood.

I thought it would be something worth the pain
  Of parting, to look once in those deep eyes,
And take from them an answering look again: 
  “When eastern palms,” I thought, “about me rise,
If I might carve our names upon the rind,
Betrothed, I would not mourn, though leaving thee behind.”