Explore "The Island" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I / How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai, / When Summer's Sun went down the coral bay! / Come, let us to the islet's softest shade, / And hear the warbling birds! the damsels said: / The wood-dove from the forest depth shall coo, / Like voices of the Gods from Bolotoo; / We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead, / For these most bloom where rests the warrior's head; / And we will sit in Twilight's face, and see / The sweet Moon glancing through the Tooa tree, / The lofty accents of whose sighing bough / Shall sadly please us as we lean below; / Or climb the steep, and view the surf in vain / Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main, / Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray.
How beautiful are these! how happy they, / Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives, / Steal to look down where nought but Ocean strives! / Even He too loves at times the blue lagoon, / And smooths his ruffled mane beneath the Moon.