Bermoothes
Under the eaves of a Southern sky,
Where the cloud roof bends to the ocean floor,
Hid in lonely seas, the Bermoothes lie — —
An emerald cluster that Neptune bore
Away from the covetous earth-gods' sight,
And placed in a setting of sapphire light.
Prospero's realm and Miranda's isles,
Floating to music of Ariel
Upon fantasy's billow, that glows and smiles,
Flushing response to the lovely spell — —
Tremulous colour and outline seen
Lucent as glassed in a life-like dream.
And away and afar as in dreams we drift
Glimmer the blossoming orange groves;
And the dolphin tints of the waters shift,
And the angel-fish through the pure lymph moves
With the gleam of a rainbow; and soft clouds sweep
Over isle and wave like the wings of sleep. . . .
Onto high calms of the sunny air
The aloe climbs with her golden flower,
While sentinel yucca and prickly-pear
With lance and with bayonet guard her bower.
And the life-leaf creeps by its fibred edge
To hang out gay bells from the jutting ledge.
A glory of oleander bloom
Borders every bend of the craggy road:
The lemon and spice tree with rare perfume
The lingering cloud fleets heavily load;
And over the beauty and over the balm
Rises the crown of the royal palm. . . .
Under this headland cliff as you row,
Follow its bastioned layers down
Into fathomless crystal far below
Vision or ken: spite of old renown,
So massive a wall could Titan erect
As the little coralline architect?
Wherever you wander the sea is in sight,
With its changeable turquoise green and blue,
And its strange transparence of limpid light.
You can watch the work that the Nereids do:
Down, down, where their purple fans unfurl,
Planting their coral and sowing their pearl.
Who knows the spot where Atlantis sank?
Myths of a lovely drowned continent
Homeless drift over waters blank:
What if these reefs were her monument?
Isthmus and cavernous capes may be
Her mountain summits escaped from the sea.
Spirits alone in these islands dwelt
All the dumb, dim years ere Columbus sailed,
The old voyagers said; and it might be spelt
Into dream-books of legend, if wonders failed,
They were demons that shipwrecked Atlantis, affrayed
At the terror of silence themselves had made.
Whatever their burden, the winds have a sound
As of muffled voices that, moaning, bewail
An unchronicled sorrow, around and around
Whispering and hushing a half-told tale — —
A musical mystery, filling the air
With its endless pathos of vague despair.
And again into fantasy's billowy play
Ripples memory back with elusive change;
For chrysolite oceans, a blank of gray,
Fringed with the films of a mirage strange — —
A shimmering blur of blossom and gleam:
Can it be Bermoothes? or is it a dream?
Where the cloud roof bends to the ocean floor,
Hid in lonely seas, the Bermoothes lie — —
An emerald cluster that Neptune bore
Away from the covetous earth-gods' sight,
And placed in a setting of sapphire light.
Prospero's realm and Miranda's isles,
Floating to music of Ariel
Upon fantasy's billow, that glows and smiles,
Flushing response to the lovely spell — —
Tremulous colour and outline seen
Lucent as glassed in a life-like dream.
And away and afar as in dreams we drift
Glimmer the blossoming orange groves;
And the dolphin tints of the waters shift,
And the angel-fish through the pure lymph moves
With the gleam of a rainbow; and soft clouds sweep
Over isle and wave like the wings of sleep. . . .
Onto high calms of the sunny air
The aloe climbs with her golden flower,
While sentinel yucca and prickly-pear
With lance and with bayonet guard her bower.
And the life-leaf creeps by its fibred edge
To hang out gay bells from the jutting ledge.
A glory of oleander bloom
Borders every bend of the craggy road:
The lemon and spice tree with rare perfume
The lingering cloud fleets heavily load;
And over the beauty and over the balm
Rises the crown of the royal palm. . . .
Under this headland cliff as you row,
Follow its bastioned layers down
Into fathomless crystal far below
Vision or ken: spite of old renown,
So massive a wall could Titan erect
As the little coralline architect?
Wherever you wander the sea is in sight,
With its changeable turquoise green and blue,
And its strange transparence of limpid light.
You can watch the work that the Nereids do:
Down, down, where their purple fans unfurl,
Planting their coral and sowing their pearl.
Who knows the spot where Atlantis sank?
Myths of a lovely drowned continent
Homeless drift over waters blank:
What if these reefs were her monument?
Isthmus and cavernous capes may be
Her mountain summits escaped from the sea.
Spirits alone in these islands dwelt
All the dumb, dim years ere Columbus sailed,
The old voyagers said; and it might be spelt
Into dream-books of legend, if wonders failed,
They were demons that shipwrecked Atlantis, affrayed
At the terror of silence themselves had made.
Whatever their burden, the winds have a sound
As of muffled voices that, moaning, bewail
An unchronicled sorrow, around and around
Whispering and hushing a half-told tale — —
A musical mystery, filling the air
With its endless pathos of vague despair.
And again into fantasy's billowy play
Ripples memory back with elusive change;
For chrysolite oceans, a blank of gray,
Fringed with the films of a mirage strange — —
A shimmering blur of blossom and gleam:
Can it be Bermoothes? or is it a dream?
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