Home, round into the English wave?-- He tarries where the Rock of Spain Mediterranean waters lave; He enters not the Atlantic main. Oh, could he once have reached this air Freshened by plunging tides, by showers! Have felt this breath he loved, of fair Cool Northern fields, and grass, and flowers! He longed for it--pressed on. In vain! At the Straits failed that spirit brave. The South was parent of his pain, The South is mistress of his grave. _A SOUTHERN NIGHT._ The sandy spits, the shore-locked lakes, Melt into open, moonlit sea; The soft Mediterranean breaks At my feet, free. Dotting the fields of corn and vine, Like ghosts, the huge gnarled olives stand; Behind, that lovely mountain line! While, by the strand,-- Cette, with its glistening houses white, Curves with the curving beach away To where the light-house beacons bright Far in the bay. Ah! such a night, so soft, so lone, So moonlit, saw me once of yore[21] Wander unquiet, and my own Vexed heart deplore. But now that trouble is forgot: Thy memory, thy pain, to-night, My brother! and thine early lot,[22] Possess me quite. The murmur of this Midland deep Is heard to-night around thy grave, There, where Gibraltar’s cannoned steep O’erfrowns the wave. For there, with bodily anguish keen, With Indian heats at last foredone, With public toil and private teen,-- Thou sank’st alone. Slow to a stop, at morning gray, I see the smoke-crowned vessel come; Slow round her paddles dies away The seething foam. A boat is lowered from her side; Ah, gently place him on the bench! That spirit--if all have not yet died-- A breath might quench. Is this the eye, the footstep fast, The mien of youth, we used to see? Poor, gallant boy! for such thou wast, Still art, to me. The limbs their wonted tasks refuse; The eyes are glazed, thou canst not speak; And whiter than thy white burnous That wasted cheek! Enough! The boat, with quiet shock, Unto its haven coming nigh, Touches, and on Gibraltar’s rock Lands thee, to die. Ah me! Gibraltar’s strand is far; But farther yet across the brine Thy dear wife’s ashes buried are, Remote from thine. For there, where morning’s sacred fount Its golden rain on earth confers, The snowy Himalayan Mount O’ershadows hers. Strange irony of fate, alas! Which, for two jaded English, saves, When from their dusty life they pass, Such peaceful graves! In cities should we English lie, Where cries are rising ever new, And men’s incessant stream goes by,-- We who pursue