Classic Poem

PART III.

The boat speeds on! The boat speeds on!
No boat e'er sped so well:
Hark! o'er the still sea, soft and slow,
The Triton winds his shell.

Then swifter sped the pearly barque;
And soon the fisherman wist
That the nearing shore was dimly seen
Through the folds of the rainbow mist.

Sounded again the Triton's shell:
The dome then rising, wide did swell,
More dim the rainbows grew,
Till fading and expanding thin,
They melted from the view.

And naught was left but the rosy mist,
Transparent as the air;
Yet it hid the Mermaid Isle, as if
No island had been there.

Naught but the glimmering moon-lit sea
Now met his wondering eye;
Though a sound in the air did seem to tell
The ear that land was nigh.

The Triton wound his shell again,
'Twas louder than before;
And doubling echoes caught the sound.
Answering as from a shore.

The three mer-maidens ceased their song
At the Triton's third long peal;
Then rose the spirit before the prow,
That bad swum below the keel.

A thin white wand was in his hand,
And, when he rose to the air,
Naught was around but the boundless sea
As vacant as eternity!
Silence was there in the empty air,
The moon-lit waves looked chill and bare,
Nor sight nor sound was there.

He touched with his wand the Fisherman's eyes.
Oh, he had been blind before!
The air was filled with living things,
With spirits on their whirring wings,
And the sea was bright with glancing fins,
And faces were there of Undines fair,
With amber decking their sea-green hair;
And their azure eyes were all turned with surprise
To the stranger the pearl-boat bore.

Still deeper down were other forms,
For the sea seemed as clear as the air;
Half in the dark lurked the dusky shark,
The " slid slimy eels " glided over the strand,
And the star-fish spangled the " ribbed sea-sand; "
Rocked on the sea-swells, the porpoise rolled,
And a thousand bright fishes of silver and gold
Peopled the waters there.

Before him was the Mermaid-Queen
Enthroned in royal state;
She sat on the back of a monster-whale,
Who spouted two jets of water, high
O'er her head, like two twin rainbows pale
On the sun-shower clouds of the evening sky:
'Neath such canopy she sate.
Four " Dolphins bared their backs of gold, "
All under her throne of pearl,
And the sea-weed green in festoons was seen
O'er its sides and back to curl.

Behind and above the rainbow sheen,
The serpent of the sea was seen
To rear his gleaming crest;
And the Kraken, with his thousand arms
Stretched up to heaven for thunder-storms —
For many a rood outspread was he,
Like a forest in the barren sea,
Like an army of giants at rest.

Suspended o'er the Kraken's form,
Was seen the shadowy Spirit of Storm
Inwrapped in growing gloom;
Half-veiled behind a lowering cloud,
Whence dull infrequent flashes rise
As if sleepily winking his lightning-eyes,
And muttering, from his sable shroud,
A sound as if he were sunk in sleep,
While the moonlight lay on the placid deep;
Yet, even in dreams, on mischief bent,
Stretched his black giant jaws, intent
To swallow up the calm still moon
Within his yawning womb!

Every spirit that roamed the deep
Or lived in ocean air,
Every fish and every bird,
That eye hath seen or ear hath heard,
And a thousand, thousand more beside
That man's dull sense hath ne'er descried,
Around their Queen were there.

And the Mermaid-Queen, Oh who was she?
Oh she was wondrous fair!
A daintily-painted transparency,
Compounded of water and air:
Her eyes, that shone with a moistened light,
That was softly dim and yet was bright,
Were an azure green or an azure blue,
Or a something just between the two.
Her webb'd wings, woven of pale moonbeams
While twinkling on the mountain streams;
Their ribs, incrusted with gems that shone
With flashes that gleamed and then were gone;
A veil of the dripping sea-weed hid
Her bosom's wavy swell;
More cannot I sing — she was a thing
" To dream of, not to tell! "

The pearl-boat floated on alone,
Till the Fisherman stood before her throne.
She charmed him with her eyes' bright sheen;
Her azure eyes' soft glances keen,
They glided cold through his veins and skin,
A thrilling feeling — half, I ween,
Like winter, and half like dread:
The pearl-boat changed to a mussel-shell,
And sank to the bottom like lead!