Classic Poem

WHO WAS DROWNED WHILE BATHING AT — —

The sun from his soft-swelling palace of blue
Looked down on the waves of the ocean:
O'er the breast of the billow the razor-bill flew,
All hushed was its stormy commotion.

The halcyon rocked on his wave-cradled bed,
And slept on the surge as a pillow;
The gulls flapped their wings o'er the mariner's head,
As his bark ploughed the foam of the billow.

Like the goddess of beauty, arrayed in her charms,
When from Ida in triumph descending,
Maria, unmindful of future alarms,
O'er the breaker that rippled was bending.

She saw in the wave, as it rolled on the shore,
Her charms, with triumphant emotion,
And little she thought, 'mid the billows' loud roar,
How soon she should sleep in the ocean.

Her maids stood around her, and scarce at her feet
Ascended the soft-kissing billow;
Ah! little they thought that an angel so sweet
Should repose on a watery pillow.

While securely they dipped in the scarce-heaving wave,
That softly around them was swelling,
The sea-nymphs were decking her coralline grave,
And her parting bell slowly was knelling.

A breaker arose, like the wave of the storm,
It foamed with a wild, heaving motion,
And dashed o'er the strand, — overwhelmed her fair form,
And buried her deep in the ocean.

A faint shriek was heard, and 't was silent again;
She has gone, — she has vanished for ever:
Long, long shall they seek for her corse in the main,
But when shall they find it? — ah! never.

On sea-weeds and corallines softly reclined,
Maria is calmly reposing:
Round her wave-polished bones the sea-mosses shall wind,
Till time o'er the ocean is closing.

And long shall the sea-boy, while wrapped in his dream,
At midnight awake from his pillow,
And wondering view, in the moon's silver beam,
Her fair spirit glide o'er the billow.