Perchance there was a strength in death; The scene it seem'd to nerve the man To superhuman strength. He rose, Held up his head, began to scan The heavens and to take his breath Right strong and lustily. He now Resumed his load, and with his eye Fixed on a star that filtered through The farther west, pushed bare his brow, And kept his course with head held high, As if he strode his deck and drew His keel below some lifted light That watched the rocky reef at night. How lone he was, how patient she, Upon that lonesome sandy sea! It were a sad, unpleasant sight To follow them through all the night, Until the time they lifted hand, And touched at last a watered land. The turkeys walked the tangled grass, And scarcely turned to let them pass. There was no sign of man, or sign Of savage beast. 'Twas so divine, It seem'd as if the bended skies Were rounded for this Paradise. The large-eyed antelope came down From off their windy hills, and blew Their whistles as they wandered through The open groves of watered wood; Then came as light as if a-wing, And reached their noses wet and brown, And stamped their little feet, and stood Close up before them wondering. What if this were the Eden true, They found in far heart of the new And unnamed westmost world I sing, Where date and history had birth, And man first 'gan his wandering To go the girdles of the earth! It lies a little isle mid land, An island in a sea of sand; With reedy waters and the balm Of an eternal summer air. Some blowy pines toss tall and fair; And there are grasses long and strong, And tropic fruits that never fail: The Manzinetta pulp, the palm, The prickly pear, with all the song Of summer birds. And there the quail Makes nest, and you may hear her call All day from out the chaparral. A land where white man never trod, And Morgan seems some demi-god, That haunts the red man's spirit land. A land where never red man's hand Is lifted up in strife at all. He holds it sacred unto those Who bravely fell before their foes, And rarely dares its desert wall. Here breaks nor sound of strife or sign; Rare times a red man comes this way, Alone, and battle-scarred and gray, And then he bends devout before The maid who keeps the cabin door, And deems her sacred and divine. Within the island's heart, 'tis said, Tall trees are bending down with bread, And that a fountain pure as truth, And deep and mossy bound and fair, Is bubbling from the forest there,-- Perchance the fabled fount of youth!