I
I walk alone on this mysterious night,
And feel that I am in the world alone;
The palms around me lift their crowns of light:
In coral caves the faint-lipped waters moan,
And in my heart they find an answering tone,
On Biscayne Bay.
II
Beyond the eye sweet sleep the Isles of June,
Crowns of the sea on night's imperial floors:
There dreams Bahama 'neath the rising moon,
A listless silence brooding o'er her shores,
The sea-breeze cools the fevered palms of noon
By Biscayne Bay.
III
Afar I see like Christ's own jewelled hand
The Southern Cross in level distance, low,
A new discovered world seems sea and land,
A world Hesperian where strange splendors glow,
As in the solitude I walk the sand
By Biscayne Bay.
IV
Here years go on in endless summer days,
Alike in all breathes sweet the roses' breath,
Resplendent winter brings but fruitful rays.
Doth on these bright shores fall the shade of death,
Here, where the flowers fill all the winter ways —
On Biscayne Bay?
V
Afar the ghostly sails move 'thwart the eye,
Afar 'mid mirrored stars tides opal flow,
The stars above, God's golden isles on high,
In deep reflections isled in deeps below,
They come, the phantom sails, and gleam and fly
From Biscayne Bay.
VI
The air grows sweet, O wondrous sweet! and whence
Comes sweet the breath as if an angel passed?
It leads me on, the messenger of sense,
Past still lagoons of reeds like armies massed,
Wild orange groves, magnolia shades and thence
By Biscayne Bay,
VII
To clouds of moss-hung cypresses, and there
I see the vines whose odors draw my feet,
And feel them breathe their sweetness on the air,
And meet them as glad souls life's angels meet,
These streaming jessamines 'mid boughs thin and bare
On Biscayne Bay.
VIII
'Tis thus, O life, with influence, be it good.
Though 'mid the cypress shadows it may bloom
Or on dead rivers, fameless seas or flood,
'Twill reach some heart at last with its perfume,
Some lone heart find like mine amid the wood
Of Biscayne Bay.
IX
It may be mine to roam in solitude,
Or do my duty 'mid the hurrying crowd,
To stand the tide of life as I have stood,
Oft look for light to see a passing crowd,
But I may be a jessamine in the wood,
Whate'er my way.
X
'Tis acts that talk, and not the chattering tongue,
'Tis what we are that others bruise or bless,
And he may walk the ways by prophets sung
Who looks from evil unto righteousness,
His influence sweet as these dim odors flung
On Biscayne Bay.
XI
The silver ibis drifts across the sea,
And I towards my Northern home must turn.
I would be true, O blessed life, to thee;
With flowers I've seen the cold, dead cypress burn,
I would be true — long will thy memory be?
O Biscayne Bay!
XII
I leave thee, flower, to cheer the feet that stray
O'er the white corals of the long lagoon,
In flaming May-times of the winter day,
In glowing June-times of the winter morn,
The burning bush that met me on my way
By Biscayne Bay.