I can remember a country of long, high colonnades

Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes,

Which mirrored in their pale marble the prismatic light

By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired,

Cast from the bright sea billows in a thousand shades,

Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows,

And which resembled a cave of fluted basalt by night.

Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.

The ocean, strewn with sliding images of the sky,

The rolling surge that mirrored all the skies

Would mingle in a mysterious and solemn way,

Mingled its music, turbulent and rich,

Under the wild brief sunsets, its tremendous cry

Solemn and mystic, with the colours which

With the reflected colors of the ruined day.

The setting sun reflected in my eyes.

There did I dwell in quiet luxury apart,

And there I lived amid voluptuous calms,

Amid the slowly changing hues of clouds and waves;

In splendours of blue sky and wandering wave,

And there I was attended by two naked slaves

Tended by many a naked, perfumed slave,

Who sometimes fanned me with great fronds on either side,

Who fanned my languid brow with waving palms.

And whose sole task was to let sink into my heart

They were my slaves — the only care they had

The dolorous and beautiful secret of which I died.

To know what secret grief had made me sad.