Look when a ship our signals ring, Full sail to fly how quick she’s veer’d! For of the sea I am the king, My fury’s to be fear’d; But equally with all I share Whate’er the wealth we take supplies; I only seek the matchless fair My portion of the prize. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only god is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea. I am condemn’d to die! I laugh; For, if my fates are kindly sped, My doomer from his own ship’s staff Perhaps I’ll hang instead. And if I fall, why what is life? For lost I gave it then as due, When from slavery’s yoke in strife A rover I withdrew. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only god is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea. My music is the north wind’s roar, The noise when round the cable runs, The bellowings of the Black Sea’s shore, And rolling of my guns. And as the thunders loudly sound, And furious as the tempests rave, I calmly rest in sleep profound, So rock’d upon the wave. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only god is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea. TO HARIFA, IN AN ORGY. Thy hand, Harifa! bring it me; Come near, and place it on my brow; As on some lava’s boiling sea I feel my head is burning now. Come, bring with mine thy lips to meet, Though they but madden me astray, Where yet I find the kisses beat, There left thy loves of yesterday. What is virtue, what is joy, Or love, or purity, or truth? The false illusions of a boy, The cherish’d flatteries of my youth. Then bring me wine; there let me try Remembrance drown’d to hold repress’d, Without a pang from life to fly; In frenzy death may give me rest. O’erspreads my face a burning flood, And red and glaring wildly start My eyes forth out in heated blood, And forth leaps restlessly my heart. Woman! I hate thee; fly thee--go: I feel thy hands my hands infold, And feel them freezing, cold as snow, As snow thy kisses are as cold. Ever the same, try, tempters weak! Other endearments to enthral; Another world, new pleasures seek, For such your joys I curse them all. Your kisses are a lie; a cheat Is all the tenderness you feign; Your beauty ugly in deceit, The enjoyment suffering and pain. I wish for love, ethereal, high, For some diviner joy my lot; For such my heart will imaged sigh, For such as in the world is not. And ’tis that meteor light afar, The phantom that deceived my mind, The treacherous guide, the vapour star, That leads me wandering and blind. * * * * *