Splendid and chill those gardens shone,
Where sound is not, and tides are winds,—
Where, fugitive, the naiad finds
Eternal autumn, hushed and lone;
Till one had said that in her bow’rs
Were mixt the nacres of the dawn,
That thence the sunset’s dyes were drawn,
And there the rainbow sank its tow’rs.
Where gorgeous flowers of chrysoprase
In songless meadows bared their blooms,
The deep’s unweariable looms
With shifting splendors lured the gaze.
And zoned on iridescent sands,
Pellucid glories came and went—
Silver and scarlet madly blent
In living stars and blazoned bands.
Hydras of emerald and blue
Were part of swaying tapestries
Whose woof from ivies of the seas
Stole each inquietude of hue.
And in those royal halls lay lost
The oriflammes and golden oars
Of argosies from lyric shores—
’Mid glimmering crowns and croziers tost.
And purple poppies vespertine
Glowed on the weird and sunken ledge,
Beyond whose rich, vermillion edge
Rose tentacles from shapes unseen—
Undulant bronze and glossy toils
That shuddered in the lustrous tide
And forms in restless crimson dyed
That caught the light in stealthy coils....
Far down we gazed, nor dared to dream
What final sorceries would be
When in those gardens of the sea
The lilies of the moon should gleam.