The Isle of Portland
A. E. Housman · 1896
Public domain
From A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
The star-filled seas are smooth to-night
From France to England strown;
Black towers above the Portland light
The felon-quarried stone.
On yonder island, not to rise,
Never to stir forth free,
Far from his folk a dead lad lies
That once was friends with me.
Lie you easy, dream you light,
And sleep you fast for aye;
And luckier may you find the night
Than ever you found the day.