When Night with breath of aloes, magnolia, spice, and balm
Creeps down the darkened jungles and mantles reef and palm,
By velvet waters making soft music as they surge
The shore lights of dark Asia will one by one emerge --
Oh, Ras Marshig by Aden
Shows dull on hazy nights;
And Bombay Channel's laid in
Its "In" and "Outer" lights.
When Night, in rain-wet garments comes sobbing cold and grey
Across the German Ocean and South from Stornoway,
Thro' snarling darkness slowly, some fixed and some a-turn,
The bright shore-lights of Europe like welcome tapers burn, --
From fierce Fruholmen streaming
O'er Northern ice and snow,
To Cape St. Vincent gleaming, --
These lamps of danger glow.
The dark Etruscan tending his watchfires by the shore,
On sacred altars burning, the world shall know no more;
His temple's column standing against the ancient stars
Is gone; Now bright catoptrics flash out electric bars, --
Slow swung his stately Argos
Unto the Tiber's mouth;
But now the Tuscan cargoes
Screw-driven, stagger South.
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