And thus rolled on long days, long months and years,
And Margaret within the Xebec sailed;
The lulling wind made music in her ears,
And nothing to her life's completeness failed.
Her pastime 'twas to see the dolphins spring,
And wonderful live rainbows glimmering.
The gay sea-plants familiar were to her,
As daisies to the children of the land;
Red wavy dulse the sunburnt mariner
Raised from its bed to glisten in her hand;
The vessel and the sea were her life's stage—
Her house, her garden, and her hermitage.
Also she had a cabin of her own,
For beauty like an elfin palace bright,
With Venice glass adorned, and crystal stone
That trembled with a many-colored light;
And there with two caged ringdoves she did play,
And feed them carefully from day to day.
Her bed with silken curtains was enclosed,
White as the snowy rose of Guelderland;
On Turkish pillows her young head reposed,
And love had gathered with a careful hand
Fair playthings to the little maiden's side,
From distant ports, and cities parted wide.
She had two myrtle-plants that she did tend,
And think all trees were like to them that grew;
For things on land she did confuse and blend,
And chiefly from the deck the land she knew,
And in her heart she pitied more and more
The steadfast dwellers on the changeless shore.
Green fields and inland meadows faded out
Of mind, or with sea-images were linked;
And yet she had her childish thoughts about
The country she had left—though indistinct
And faint as mist the mountain-head that shrouds,
Or dim through distance as Magellan's clouds.
And when to frame a forest scene she tried,
The ever-present sea would yet intrude,
And all her towns were by the water's side,
It murmured in all moorland solitude,
Where rocks and the ribbed sand would intervene,
And waves would edge her fancied village green;
Because her heart was like an ocean shell,
That holds (men say) a message from the deep,
And yet the land was strong, she knew its spell,
And harbor lights could draw her in her sleep;
And minster chimes from piercèd towers that swim,
Were the land-angels making God a hymn.
So she grew on, the idol of one heart,
And the delight of many—and her face,
Thus dwelling chiefly from her sex apart,
Was touched with a most deep and tender grace—
A look that never aught but nature gave,
Artless, yet thoughtful; innocent, yet grave.
Strange her adornings were, and strangely blent:
A golden net confined her nut-brown hair;
Quaint were the robes that divers lands had lent,
And quaint her aged nurse's skill and care;
Yet did they well on the sea-maiden meet,
Circle her neck, and grace her dimpled feet.