O paradise of waters and of isles that gleam, <br />Dark pines on scarps that flame white in a mirrored sky, <br />A hundred isles that change like a dissolving dream <br />From shape to shape for them that with the wind glide by! <br />Many celestial palaces, gardens of scented song, <br />Have hearts of men imagined for lost happiness; <br />But merely around these isles, the live sea streams among <br />Salt with a pulsing tide, no languid lake's caress, <br />To sail and ever sail, with not a sound to feel <br />In the clean blue, but silence vivid with delight, <br />A silence winged with rush of the dividing keel, <br />As if the world's sorrow and folly had taken flight, <br />Suspended pale as that faint circle far--away <br />Of mountain, and remote as ocean's murmuring miles, <br />This, only this, for me were paradise to--day, <br />O paradise of waters, paradise of isles.<br /><br />Robert Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/matsushima/
