Straightway they kilted their skirts above their snowy knees, {940}
And high on the crests of the skerries, the breaking of madding seas,
To this side and that side they sped, far ranged apart to stand.
Sea-cataracts crashed on her beam, fierce surges on either hand
Higher upsoaring and higher o’er the rocks were bursting and streaming;
And these now towered to the welkin, as mountain-crags in seeming,
And now, whelmed down the abyss, on the Ocean’s nethermost floor
Grounded they: over their crests did the triumphing rollers roar.
But the Nereïds, as maidens that flit to and fro on a sandy beach,
With parted gown-laps kilted about the waist of each,