Note 2 — A PERSONAL STORY
Reading edition
“Now under heaven all winds abated, The sea a settling and foamless floor, A sunset city is open-gated, Unfastened flashes a golden door. Cloud-walls asunder burst and brighten Like melted metal in furnace blaze; The lava rivers run through and lighten, The glory gathers before my gaze. Eastward an isle, half sunken, sleeping, Crowns the sea with a bluer crest; Vine-clad Terceira!—but I am keeping A tryst to-night with the wondrous west. What there is wanting of purple islands, Lo! golden archipelagoes, Coasts silver shining, and inner highlands, Long ranges rosy with sunny snows. All glowing golds, all scarlets burning, All palest, tenderest, vanishing hues, All clouded colour and tinges turning, Enrich, divide, the double blues; O’erleaning cliffs and crags gigantic And in the heart of light one shore Such as, alas! no sea Atlantic To bless the voyager ever bore.”