Classic Poem

PART IV.

All above and around was water now
That had been air before;
It moved to and fro like a living thing,
And made a moan-like murmuring,
Like the rough waves' distant roar
Upon a rocky shore.

The sea-weed hung, swinging and waving,
Swinging and waving green;
And through the tall and bending flags
The coral groves were seen.

Where were the shapes that flocked around
Thronging the peopled sea?
Save where some lagging half-seen sprite
Through the distant flags did flee,
No living thing was anywhere,
But the mermaids fair, that brought him there,
The mermaid sisters three.

Now, when under the waves, he saw
How below their virgin breast
Their forms wound down like a fish's tail,
With purple and gold on every scale,
Now flashing bright, now glimmering pale;
And their bright blue fins through the wave were seen
Plying, with golden ribs between,
In glancing colors drest.
But the charmed glance of the Mermaid-Queen
Had changed himself still more;
He felt that his legs had run together,
And fins were behind and before.

And scales were between his skin and the sea;
The water slipped by them unfeelingly,
Like streams o'er a pebble-stone;
His fins they plied of their own accord,
By an instinct of their own;
They seemed like part of another self,
As if they knew what he would do,
And did it themselves alone.

One mermaid led the way before,
One was on either side;
" Swift as the thoughts of Love, " they cleft
Their course through the yielding tide.

First they sped through the bending flags,
And then through a coral grove
Whose boughs were intertwined together,
The white and the red met overhead,
And formed an archway above.

Far down below, in his oozy bed,
The sea-snake's sinuous coils were spread;
The rank weeds covered his sleeping head,
And he was couched before
An opening dark, in which were seen
The kelp's broad leaves of waving green:
It was a cavern door.
They entered in through a rift in the rock,
And upward still they swam,
Till to a grotto wonderful
And beautiful they came.

Here of a softly-perfumed air
The atmosphere did seem:
With moon-stone were the walls inlaid,
Half in the light, half in sombre shade;
The cavern was lofty, long, and wide,
And, opening in each indented side,
Were deep recesses, leading on —
A devious course through solid stone —
To other chambers, not less rare,
Nor favored less by sea-girls' care,
Which decked these arches crystalline
With wreaths of shells, in varied line
Of drooping sweep, or light festoon,
Of swelling curve of crescent moon.
The roof, above, its span revealed
With mazy intricacy ceiled;
Resembling in its fretted style
Some ancient quaint cathedral pile:
Downward the sparry pendants hung,
And far the blazing radiance flung
Of carbuncles, set in their tips,
Giving the moon a half-eclipse.
The triple-moulded ribs they shone
With amethyst and beryl-stone;
All waving seemed the rest of the roof
As of tissue made — the twinkling woof.

Inwoven with stars (a servant-sprite
Wrought the magic web in a single night).
Wondrously gorgeous was the sight,
As a " youthful poet's dream! "
And between the central pendants, through
A rich round window of deep sky-blue,
Shone in the pale moon-beam.

Here in this twilight chamber fair
Shone all that ever ocean bare
Of beautiful, or rich, or rare,
With self-born brilliance; all
The natural wealth the waters boast,
With gems by shipwrecked mariners lost,
Incrusted the spangled wall.

Below the water, the wrinkled sands
Were studded with jewels bright;
And up through the waves came glistening rays
Of faintly-tinted light.

In it the self-illumined gems
Gazed on their twinkling diadems,
Shadow with shadow dancing;
And the tide, with its thousand crystal eyes,
Did twinkle back their glancing.

But the gayest of all was a deep alcove,
Beneath the boughs of a coral grove,
Where floated a couch, it seemed;
Its curtains were wrought of the Nautilus sails
That sported once in ocean gales;
Festoons of pearls were hung around —
Pearls that of every hue were found;
They shone with a mild and misty light,
And from their mingled tints a bright
And diverse radiance beamed.

A lovely form on the couch was laid;
Each eye, in deep repose,
Was veiled behind a blue-veined lid
Whose silken fringes but half hid
What they would fain disclose.

One pale soft cheek on her snowy arm
All motionless was laid:
Her tresses brown they hung adown,
Dipping their circlets in the tide;
Whence little ripplings, side by side,
In the quivering moon-light played.
Her vest, of silver-vapor made
(The warp was light, the weft was shade,
Woven cunningly by magic hand
In the tiny looms of fairie-land),
With many a swell half visible,
Whose outline soft no tongue could tell,
Inwrapped the slumbering maid.

Like the beamy glory shed
Round an infant Jesus' head,
The moonbeams shone on that lovely one
A silvery bright air-shower:
'Twas Mary fair lay slumbering there,
And this was her beauty-bower.