- A rumour to the Romans came,
- Got partly from a poet's lips,
- And part from sunset clouds aflame,
- Seen dimly from the furthest ships.
- It told how, westward of our hopes
- And further far than any dream,
- With dawn for ever on their slopes,
- The Happy Isles are all agleam.
- I think that some seafarer hurled
- Beyond the Gates of Hercules,
- Lost by the boundaries of the world
- And tost upon the last of seas,
- Saw Islay suddenly through haze,
- By some wild shaft of sunshine lit,
- Its heather gleaming in the rays,
- And Jura gazing down on it.
-from Fifty Poems.
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