The Happy Isles

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.