Fierce Neptune’s daughter, beneath the water,
In grottoes cool dwelt I,
And, laughing, hid in the seashell’s lid,
As fishes arrowed by.
My feet were free to the undersea;
I played amidst its gloom,
And in the deep where the mermaids weep
Above the hero’s tomb,
Where the sea snake strips dainty maiden lips
Of kisses once so warm,
And the lifeless child, by the eddies wild,
Is torn from the mother’s arm.
The foam-browed billow my head would pillow
Upon its bosom fair,
While the restless sweep of the moon-led deep
Would drift us here and there.
I oft would float in the dainty boat
The Nautilus oared for me,
Out, far, far out, where a noisy rout
Of breakers leapt in glee;
Or further urge to the world’s dim verge,
Where heaven meets the wave,
And the seagull’s wing was the only thing
To follow us was brave.
Then called by the blast, as it glided past,
I would turn and clap my hands,
As the waves were tossed on the tropic coast,
And furrowed the silver sands.

Where, with weedy locks, the bare limbed rocks
Bend over the foaming sea,
I oft resorted, and, as I sported,
The sunbeams played with me.
We would dance all day in the prismed spray,
Or in the blossoms hide,
That, trembling, clung to the crags and hung
Above the boiling tide.
Oftimes the cool, green depths of a pool
Would lure me down to rest,
Till the sunbeams came in a path of flame
And found me in my nest.
With colors gaily they decked me daily,
And tempted me to fly
Afar from the foam of my ocean home
Aloft in the cloudless sky.
But I said them nay, for the leaping spray,
And cool, green depths of sea,
Than the flight of birds and the sunbeams’ words
Were dearer far to me.
“I had seen,” I said, “to the sky o’erhead
My sisters, laughing, soar
For a merry flight through the azure bright,
And never saw them more.
I love my home in the ocean foam,
I love the moonlit sands,
And I would sigh in the depths of sky
And die in distant lands.”

But who can prove to the plea of love,
Unyielding and unkind?
At love’s low call we hasten all,
Like leaves at the voice of wind.
And ere the moon at the night’s high noon
Had twelve times orbed grown,
My heart was stirred at a whispered word,
My soul was not mine own.
My lover was fair as the balmy air
That follows after storm,
When the careless sea, with a song of glee,
Trips over the shallows warm.
He was the first through the gloom that burst
To bring the dawn to me,
And he was the last from my sight that passed
When darkness walked the sea.
One shimmering day, as asleep I lay
Upon the tide-worn sand,
He stole apart, with an eager heart,
From all the sunny band.
He came to me, as I lay thought free,
And bent my couch above,
And while I slumbered, with words unnumbered,
He pleaded for my love;
Then as I woke at the words he spoke,
And rising turned to flee,
I was closely pressed to his ardent breast,
And kisses were rained on me.

“My heart’s own dearest,” he cried, “why fearest
Thou to take flight with me?
Is there aught more fair than the realms of air
In yonder sullen sea?
Is the sea-gull’s scream or the under gleam
Of billows rushing by
More sweet to thee than the melody
Of larks in the azure sky?
Oh, be thou my bride, and side by side
We’ll float upon the breeze
O’er river and town, o’er forest and down,
Wherever we twain shall please.
We’ll swim in the wine of the luscious vine
Which brims the crystal high,
And when of her lover the fond words move her,
We’ll dance in the maiden’s eye.
We’ll scale vast mountains and o’er gay fountains
Hover in noon’s warm glare,
And when night lowers, shall sleep in flowers
That sway in the dewy air.
And shouldst thou tire, nor more desire
The airy plains to roam,
But pine again for the leaping main
And the drench of flying foam,
We need but glide on the leaf-sown tide
Of some swift coursing stream
To our home at last, and the happy past
Shall be but a varied dream.”

I could but yield as he thus appealed,
And clasping hand in hand,
With a parting glance at the sea’s expanse,
Dun rocks and silver strand,
We mounted high in the glowing sky,
And, leaving home behind,
Fared swiftly forth to the distant north
Upon the balmy wind.
O’er tangled brakes where the twilight makes
For evermore its home,
And the tiger sleeps and the cobra creeps,
And prowling jackals roam,
We floated fast, till the hills, at last,
To bar our path appeared,
And many a peak its forehead bleak
And tawny flanks upreared.
O’er many a cleft in the rocks bereft
Of life and the sunlight’s sheen,
Wild torrents were hurled to the under world,
And wheeled the eagles keen.
In faltering line

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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