Never did one tender vision
Fade away before my sight,
Never once through all my slavery,
Burning day or dreary night;
In my soul it lived, and kept me,
Now I feel, from black despair,
And my heart was not quite broken,
While they lived and blest me there.

When at night my task was over,
I would hasten to the shore;
(All was strange and foreign inland,
Nothing I had known before).
Strange look’d the bleak mountain passes,
Strange the red glare and black shade,
And the Oleanders, waving
To the sound the fountains made.

Then I gazed at the great Ocean,
Till she grew a friend again;
And because she knew old England,
I forgave her all my pain:
So the blue still sky above me,
With its white clouds’ fleecy fold,
And the glimmering stars (though brighter),
Look’d like home and days of old.

And a calm would fall upon me;
Worn perhaps with work and pain,
The wild hungry longing left me,
And I was myself again:
Looking at the silver waters,
Looking up at the far sky,
Dreams of home and all I left there
Floated sorrowfully by.

A fair face, but pale with sorrow,
With blue eyes, brimful of tears,
And the little red mouth, quivering
With a smile, to hide its fears;
Holding out her baby towards me,
From the sky she look’d on me;
So it was that I last saw her,
As the ship put out to sea.

Sometimes (and a pang would seize me
That the years were floating on)
I would strive to paint her, alter’d,
And the little baby gone:
She no longer young and girlish,
The child, standing by her knee,
And her face, more pale and sadden’d
With the weariness for me.

Then I saw, as night grew darker,
How she taught my child to pray,
Holding its small hands together,
For its father, far away;
And I felt her sorrow, weighing
Heavier on me than mine own;
Pitying her blighted spring-time,
And her joy so early flown.

Till upon my hands (now harden’d
With the rough harsh toil of years,)
Bitter drops of anguish, falling,
Woke me from my dream, to tears;
Woke me as a slave, an outcast,
Leagues from home, across the deep;
So—though you may call it childish—
So I sobb’d myself to sleep.

Well, the years sped on—my sorrow
Calmer, and yet stronger grown,
Was my shield against all suffering,
Poorer, meaner, than her own.
So my cruel master’s harshness
Fell upon me all in vain,
Yet the tale of what we sufler’d
Echo’d back from main to main.

You have heard in a far country
Of a self-devoted band,
Vow’d to rescue Christian captives
Pining in a foreign land.
And these gentle-hearted strangers
Year by year go forth from Rome,
In their hands the hard-earn’d ransom
To restore some exiles home.

I was freed: they broke the tidings
Gently to me; but indeed
Hour by hour sped on, I knew not
What the words meant—I was freed!
Better so, perhaps, while sorrow
(More akin to earthly things)
Only strains the sad heart’s fibres—
Joy, bright stranger, breaks the strings.

Yet at last it rush’d upon me,
And my heart beat full and fast;
What were now my years of waiting,
What was all the dreary past?
Nothing, to the impatient throbbing
I must bear across the sea:
Nothing to the eternal hours
Still between my home and me!

How the voyage pass’d, I know not;
Strange it was once more to stand,
With my countrymen around me,
And to clasp an English hand.
But, through all, my heart was dreaming
Of the first words I should hear,
In the gentle voice that echo’d,
Fresh as ever, on my ear.

Should I see her start of wonder,
And the sudden truth arise,
Flushing all her face and lightening
The dimm’d splendour of her eyes?
O! to watch the fear and doubting
Stir the silent depths of pain,
And the rush of joy—then melting
Into perfect peace again.

And the child!—but why remember
Foolish fancies that I thought?
Every tree and every hedgerow
From the well-known past I brought:
I would picture my dear cottage,
See the crackling wood-fire burn,
And the two beside it, seated
Watching, waiting, my return.

So, at last we reach’d the harbour.
I remember nothing more
Till I stood, my sick heart throbbing
With my hand upon the door.
There I paused—I heard her speaking;
Low, soft, murmuring words she said;
Then I first knew the dumb terror
I had had, lest she were dead.

It was evening in late autumn,
And the gusty wind blew chill;
Autumn leaves were falling round me,
And the red sun lit the hill.
Six and twenty years are vanish’d
Since then—I am old and grey—
But I never told to mortal
What I saw, until this day.