And far down, fathoms on fathoms, flitted rainbow hues:—as seines- full of mermaids; half-screening the bones of the drowned.
Swifter and swifter the currents now ran; till with a shock, our prows were beached.
There, beneath an arch of spray, three dark-eyed maidens stood; garlanded with columbines, their nectaries nodding like jesters’ bells; and robed in vestments blue.
“The pilot-fish transformed!” cried Yoomy.
“The night-eyed heralds three!” said Mohi.
Following the maidens, we now took our way along a winding vale; where, by sweet-scented hedges, flowed blue-braided brooks; their tributaries, rivulets of violets, meandering through the meads.
On one hand, forever glowed the rosy mountains with a tropic dawn; and on the other; lay an Arctic eve;—the white daisies drifted in long banks of snow, and snowed the blossoms from the orange boughs. There, summer breathed her bridal bloom; her hill-top temples crowned with bridal wreaths.
We wandered on, through orchards arched in long arcades, that seemed baronial halls, hung o’er with trophies:—so spread the boughs in antlers. This orchard was the frontlet of the isle.
The fruit hung high in air, that only beaks, not hands, might pluck.
Here, the peach tree showed her thousand cheeks of down, kissed often by the wooing winds; here, in swarms; the yellow apples hived, like golden bees upon the boughs; here, from the kneeling, fainting trees, thick fell the cherries, in great drops of blood; and here, the pomegranate, with cold rind and sere, deep pierced by bills of birds revealed the mellow of its ruddy core. So, oft the heart, that cold and withered seems, within yet hides its juices.