"Sail-fish in secret, silent deeps reside,
In shape and nature to the preke[ [75] ] allied;
Close in their concave shells their bodies wrap,
Avoid the waves and every storm escape.
But not to mirksome depths alone confined;
When pleasing calms have stilled the sighing wind,
Curious to know what seas above contain,
They leave the dark recesses of the main;
Now, wanton, to the changing surface haste,
View clearer skies, and the pure welkin taste.
But slow they, cautious, rise, and, prudent, fear
The upper region of the watery sphere;
Backward they mount, and as the stream o'erflows,
Their convex shells to pressing floods oppose.
Conscious, they know that, should they forward move,
O'erwhelming waves would sink them from above,
Fill the void space, and with the rushing weight,
Force down th' inconstants to their former seat.
When, first arrived, they feel the stronger blast,
They lie supine and skim the liquid waste.
The natural barks out-do all human art
When skilful floaters play the sailor's part.
Two feet they upward raise, and steady keep;
These are the masts and rigging of the ship:
A membrane stretch'd between supplies the sail,
Bends from the masts, and swells before the gale.
Two other feet hang paddling on each side,
And serve for oars to row and helm to guide.
'Tis thus they sail, pleased with the wanton game,
The fish, the sailor, and the ship, the same.
But when the swimmers dread some dangers near
The sportive pleasure yields to stronger fear.
No more they, wanton, drive before the blasts,
But strike the sails, and bring down all the masts;
The rolling waves their sinking shells o'erflow,
And dash them down again to sands below."
Montgomery also thus exquisitely paraphrases the same idea in his 'Pelican Island':—
"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel upwards, from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her orb is filled.
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up, and glided down, the billows
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light."
Byron mentions the Nautilus in his 'Mutiny of the Bounty' as follows:—
"The tender Nautilus, who steers his prow,
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab—the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and alas! more free.
He, when the lightning-winged tornadoes sweep
The surge, is safe: his port is in the deep;
And triumphs o'er the armadas of mankind
Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind."
The very names by which this animal is known to the science which some persons erroneously think must be so hard and dry are poetic. In Aristotle's day it was called the Nautilus or Nauticus, "the mariner," and though two thousand two hundred years have passed since the great master wrote, the name still clings to it. As the Pearly Nautilus, a very different animal, also bears that name, Gualtieri perceived the necessity of distinguishing the Paper Nautilus from it, and was followed by Linnæus, who therefore entitled the genus to which the latter belongs, Argonauta, after the ship Argo, in which Jason and his companions sailed to Colchis to carry off the "Golden Fleece" suspended there in the temple of Mars, and guarded by brazen-hoofed bulls, whose nostrils breathed out fire and death, and by a watchful dragon that never slept. According to the Greek legend, the Argo was named after its builder Argus, the son of Danaus, and was the first ship that ever was built. Oppian ('Halieutics,' book I.) expresses his opinion that the Nautilus served as a model for the man who first conceived the idea of constructing a ship, and embarking on the waters:—
"Ye Powers! when man first felled the stately trees,
And passed to distant shores on wafting seas,
Whether some god inspired the wondrous thought,
Or chance found out, or careful study sought;
If humble guess may probably divine,
And trace th' improvement to the first design,
Some wight of prying search, who wond'ring stood
When softer gales had smoothed the dimpled flood,
Observed these careless swimmers floating move,
And how each blast the easy sailor drove;
Hence took the hint, hence formed th' imperfect draught,
And ship-like fish the future seaman taught.
Then mortals tried the shelving hull to slope,
To raise the mast, and twist the stronger rope,
To fix the yards, let fly the crowded sails,
Sweep through the curling waves, and court auspicious gales."
Pope, too, in his 'Essay on Man' (Ep. 3), adopted the idea in his exhortation—
"Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."
Poetry, like the wizard's spell, can make