The Island of Madeira

Though never axe until a later day   
Assailed thy forests’ huge antiquity,   
Yet elder Fame had many tales of thee,—   
Whether Phœnician shipman far astray   
Had brought uncertain notices away           
Of islands dreaming in the middle sea;   
Or that man’s heart, which struggles to be free   
From the old worn-out world, had never stay   
Till, for a place to rest on, it had found   
A region out of ken,—that happier isle,           
Which the mild ocean-breezes blow around,—   
Where they who thrice upon this mortal stage   
Had kept their hands from wrong, their hearts from guile,   
Should come at length, and live a tearless age.