Classic Poem

PART V.

Hist ! Music with a witching tone
The while is breathing round:
And yet in sooth I could not say
That voice e'er sang so sweet a lay;
O say not that it was a voice,
But call it voiceless sound.

I could not tell the song it sung,
The words were of another tongue —
They sounded soft and low;
As when in sultry summer weather
The air and the sea are whispering together,
Waves rolling their regular lengths along,
The measured rhythm of ocean-song,
Murmuring in ebb and flow.

The music had a deeper swell
Than Arion's dolphin-charming shell.
The various, omnipresent sound
Uttered itself from all around,
Clear, echoing, whisp'ring, circling, ringing,
As if the very walls were singing,
All seemed so musical.
With open ears the ranged shells
Drank in the " dying fall; "
The curtained pearls they seemed to be,
Amid this melting melody,
By their own will so breathless still,
As they were listening all.

Not palpable this melody,
Like human music, seemed to be:
For every note from a mortal throat
Doth come from some particular spot,
And fills as it were but one half of the air;
This through the whole round atmosphere
With sweet vibrations wound,
As if spirits that are themselves but air
Had gently wooed their brother-air
To change itself to sound.

The mazy tones, forever new,
Crept lingering, loitering, winding through
The labyrinths of the wondering ear,
As if ever just beginning to hear
A never-ending strain:
And when you thought that all was still,
You heard the sound again.

The Fisherman in wonderment
A moment listening stood;
Then gazed on the couch with deep devotion,
As, rocked with undulating motion,
It floated on the flood.

When lo! the couch began to glide
Over the rippling, sparkling tide,
And the sea-girls swam on either side,
The sleeping fair in their arms to bear,
And through the wave to guide.
Then the inarticulate music, swelling,
Following forsook its moon-stone dwelling;
And, as they left the deep alcove,
And sped again through the coral grove,
And through the bending flags did flee,
They heard its warbling minstrelsy:
Thrilling the soul, through the waves it stole,
And echoes faint replied.

And the sea-sisters three sang merrily,
And waved their locks of green,
As gaily they bore their charge before
The throne of the Mermaid-Queen.

'Twas the early matin hour; the time
Of the first watch after the midnight chime.
The Kraken's arms, below the sea,
Were folded all; asleep was he.

The sea-snake, cased in glossy green,
Lay in slumbering coils of spotted sheen,
And the mer-women gay had glided away,
In their coral caves to rest:
The Spirit of Storm, with his lightning eyes,
Lay, lulled to sleep by murmuring sighs,
On a zephyr's balmy breast.

The young Queen reclined in a purple shell,
So gently rocked by the ocean swell,
That scarce it seemed to move.
Her webb'd wings, of the moonbeams moulded,
Arching over her head were folded,
And round her form half immaterial,
Fairies had wrapped a robe airial.
Transparent as the pure blue skies,
The stars shone through her azure eyes,
In which their tender twinkling light
Shone softer, sweeter, yet not less bright,
Than from their orbs above.

And while he watched her beauty rare,
Soft sounds of silence filled the air;
Such as in Nature's beauties fair
Do a mute life betoken.
The sounds he can hear, with his outward ear,
Though he feels and knows they cannot be
From the distant earth, or the air, or the sea,
But from within come echoingly,
From the caves of long-gone Memory,
By wondrous charm awoken.
'Tis as when, in the noon of a summer's day,
By the cicada's roundelay,
By the cool clear brook in its bubbling play,
Or by the murmuring wings of bees,
By whispering trees, or sighing seas,
Silence is bred, not broken.

The lovely Queen of the Mermaid Isle
She gazed on the Fisherman the while,
With charmed glance and witching smile,
When again his own form he wore.
Then a deep thrill came o'er his quivering frame;
And loves, and longing, and fond thoughts thronging,
And burning hopes, sprang in his breast,
Such as had seemed to be at best
But hopeless dreams before.

And Mary feels the charm that lies
Within those star-lit, cerulean eyes.
The marble-white from her cheek has fled
'Fore the blush of life, with its delicate red;
And her heaving breast and flitting smile
Told tales of conscious love-dreams, while —
Still all by magic sleep oppressed —
She sank on her lover's throbbing breast.
Then under the twain, from the depths of the main
The pearl-boat rose again:
And, gath'ring its folds from its island-home,
Over them rose the rainbow-dome.
With reflex hues the water played
Beneath its ever-varying shade:
Then, like a distant village bell,
The Triton wound his echoing shell,
While the sea-girls raised their choral strain,
And away o'er the glassy main!