河上有雾，城镇上有黑;你可以听到摸索着的渡船互相轰鸣;从炮台区到哈莱姆区，有七英里的泥水，穿过闪闪发光的花岗岩峡谷，噪音，和匆忙。你是否厌倦了电话、售票机和疯狂的有线电视铃声;厌倦了剧院、马车和百老汇大街上喘不过气来的人群;厌倦了弗洛里特酒店、华尔道夫酒店和阴冷的、下着毛毛雨的公园，当几乎没有早晨，五点钟已经黑了?我知道那里有一座城市，街道洁白干净，海蓝色的晨光在玫瑰倚壁徘徊，宁静在那里居住;那是拿骚，在她的乳白色的钥匙旁边，在蓝色的巴哈曼海上的卢卡亚女王。她被海浪和珊瑚环绕，她被阳光和棕榈树加冕;她有旧世界的悠闲，有热带帝王般的平静;信风吹动着她的额头;在永恒的六月里，她在蓝色的泻湖上的深阳台上统治着。 She has had many suitors,--Spaniard and Buccaneer,-- Who roistered for her beauty and spilt their blood for her; But none has dared molest her, since the Loyalist Deveaux Went down from Carolina a hundred years ago. Unmodern, undistracted, by grassy ramp and fort, In decency and order she holds her modest court; She seems to have forgotten rapine and greed and strife, In that unaging gladness and dignity of life. Through streets as smooth as asphalt and white as bleaching shell, Where the slip-shod heel is happy and the naked foot goes well, In their gaudy cotton kerchiefs, with swaying hips and free, Go her black folk in the morning to the market of the sea. Into her bright sea-gardens the flushing tide-gates lead, Where fins of chrome and scarlet loll in the lifting weed; With the long sea-draft behind them, through luring coral groves The shiny water-people go by in painted droves. Under her old pink gateways, where Time a moment turns, Where hang the orange lanterns and the red hibiscus burns, Live the harmless merry lizards, quicksilver in the sun, Or still as any image with their shadow on a stone. Through the lemon-trees at leisure a tiny olive bird Moves all day long and utters his wise assuring word; While up in their blue chantry murmur the solemn palms. At their litanies of joyance, their ancient ceaseless psalms. There in the endless sunlight, within the surf's low sound, Peace tarries for a lifetime at doorways unrenowned; And a velvet air goes breathing across the sea-girt land, Till the sense begins to waken and the soul to understand. There's a pier in the East River, where a black Ward Liner lies, With her wheezy donkey-engines taking cargo and supplies; She will clear the Hook to-morrow for the Indies of the West, For the lovely white girl city in the Islands of the Blest. She'll front the riding winter on the gray Atlantic seas, And thunder through the surf-heads till her funnels crust and freeze; She'll grapple the Southeaster, the Thing without a Mind, Till she drops him, mad and monstrous, with the light ship far behind. Then out into a morning all summer warmth and blue! By the breathing of her pistons, by the purring of the screw, By the springy dip and tremor as she rises, you can tell Her heart is light and easy as she meets the lazy swell. With the flying fish before her, and the white wake running aft, Her smoke-wreath hanging idle, without breeze enough for draft, She will travel fair and steady, and in the afternoon Run down the floating palm-tops where lift the Isles of June. With the low boom of breakers for her only signal gun, She will anchor off the harbor when her thousand miles are done, And there's my love, white Nassau, girt with her foaming key, The queen of the Lucayas in the blue Bahaman sea!