"Straight from my couch I rose, and like a ghost
Stole through the darkness of my father's halls;
Fled to the sea; and in my fragile bark
I heaped a few fresh fruits, and bore a vase
Filled with fresh water,—this was all my store.
I loosed my shallop from the anchoring rock,
And, as it drifted out upon the tide,
I leaned upon the single, slender oar
Whose aid was all I asked upon the deep.
Before my yearning vision lay my home,
Fading away from sight as the full tide
Went murmuring back from its delightful shores.
The loveliest hour of all the twenty-four
Charmed earth and ocean, that eventful time.
Moonlight and morning, softly blending, lay
Upon the land; while down the glassy sea,
Far in the distance, slowly stole a band
Of sunrise glories, smiling, looking back,
And glowing with warm splendors. All the East
Was crimson with their blushes, and the waves
Which followed in their bright and stately way
Wore crests of gold, and purple-shaded robes.
Next came light breezes blowing from the land,
Odorous with roses, sweet with drowsy songs
Of nightingales, and cool with myrtle leaves,
Following down the path the sunrise took.
And next, the stars went dimly down the west,
Crowd upon crowd, in slow and shining cars,
Bright wheeling down their heaven-appointed way.
"All day the sun shadowed himself in clouds;
My cheeks scarce browned beneath his cooled rays.
At night I sank contentedly to sleep,
Upon the silken cushions of my bark;
Then mermaids, who, attracted by my voice,
Had floated round me, underneath the waves,
Not daring to appear, swam near, reached out
Their arms of glowing white, and touched the boat.
Charmed by the helplessness of sleep in me,
They chanted sea-hymns, and I, straightway, dreamed
Of tinkling fountains in my father's halls,
And how my lover sat beside me there,
Murmuring his words of love in my thrilled ear.
They rocked the bark, too, with their lily hands,
As tender mothers rock their cradled babes:
And one wild sea-nymph reached and touched my hair—
I saw her through my dream!—and one unstrung
The pearls from out her own wave-wetted locks,
And flung them by me.
"The fresh morn waked me;
A current, gentle as a musical sound,
Swept the boat onward, as by magic power.
At times I thought, perchance, the nymphs beneath
Propelled it, but when I recalled my dream,
I knew some freak of nature, or some law,
By me uncomprehended, did the work.
At night I heard the naiads, in a tone
As soft as shepherd's reed, sing ocean-songs;
And sometimes, in the day, above the wave
I for a moment saw a lovely face,
Pearled in a clinging mass of shell-wreathed hair,
Peering upon me with strange, smiling eyes.
Gay fishes, in the sunlight gleaming, swam
With playful fires of evanescent hues;
And birds did sometimes rest their weary wings
Upon my shoulder, pecking at the fruit
Which I did share with them, though small my store.
"Thus on and on continuous days I fled;
No wind came now, blowing from flowery shores,
At times to startle me with dreams of home;
No more bewildering songs rose all the night
Around me; nor familiar faces glanced
An instant from the deep; nor long, fair fingers
Hung on the gilded prow.
"The Temperate Zone
Had floated by like a long stream of gold;
The Arctics lay before me, vast and drear;
The sea was green and rough; no gay fish darted
Like silver arrows from the quivering wave;
But monsters, with thick scales and hideous eyes,
Looked sullenly up in stupid wonderment,
While some swam to'ards me, with rapacious maws
Sharp-fanged and bloody, and exulting fins
Flapping with demon slowness their huge sides;—
And still I passed unhurt.
"Once round my boat
For many hours an old sea-dragon hovered.
His huge folds lay like rainbows on the sea,
And his two eyes, like suns, resplendent shone.
He seemed to guard thy realm, O, mighty Queen!
And, with the cunning power of those large eyes,
To awe intruders from thy frozen world.
So fearlessly my gaze repelled his own
I charmed this wary dragon of the North;
The eyes that erst had sparkled goldenly
With a malicious and infatuous brightness,
Grew lost and dreaming in a vacant splendor;
The rainbow lustre of his lengthening folds
Faded to harmless green, till, prone, he lay,
A floating dream of dread, upon the deep;
Then, with the noiseless current drifting on,
I passed your subtle guardian swiftly by;
While only one faint sparkle, green and gold,
Broke from his sluggish sides as I swept past.
"The grandeur of your floating towers of ice
Stole on my sight; the sea rolled rough; the air
Was sharp and clear; and yet this delicate robe
Was all sufficient to resist its power.
Soon, upon every side, I saw tall bergs.
A child of fragrant airs and sunny skies,
Enervate with the South's soft luxuries,
These icebergs burst upon me like a sense
Newly received, revealing God anew.
While in the distance, calmly floating on
Through the broad sunlight, then I loved to dream
That they were palaces upreared by gnomes,
With glittering towers and silver pinnacles,—
That in them were expanded halls of light—
Vast chambers—with such gorgeous, fretted roofs
And shining floors, as wearied human sight;
That fountains filled them with a slumberous sound;
And curtains, wrought of silver-threaded frost,
Were looped with priceless pearls from room to room;—
A home for all the spirits of the Good
Lost in the pitiless sea,—where they would bathe
Their thoughts in heaven's splendor, looking out
The golden windows towards the constant sun,
Shining, unceasing, slant against their brows.
"But, as I nearer drew, I lost that dream
In one more gloomy. They did seem to shape
Themselves to living giants; lifting high
Their frowning foreheads, crowned with fiery crowns.
As lower sank the sun towards the sea,
Gloomier did they grow, with their white hair
And lifted spears, walking with mighty steps
The creaking floor of the unsteady deep.—
Nodding defiantly at one another—
Meeting, with crashing spears and splintered shields,
With hoarse cries, breast to breast, in angry strife;
Their armor shivered at their feet, the sea
Broken beneath their tread and shuddering
At the great shock.
"More thick these terrors grew;
Broad fields stretched out in many a frozen ridge;
While far beyond were paths of printless snow.
The ocean lay behind; and yet my boat
Moved ever onward, up a watery isle,
Opening, like a deep river, through the ice.
A shadowy land spread out on either side,
Where, moveless as some black and brooding bird,
Night hovered, silent, vast, and wonderful.
Thy Heralds, the North-Lights, did startle me
Into new wonder by their glowing shapes,
Swift rushing down the sky, those phantasms wild,
Flushing, and paling in their measureless speed.
"At length I drifted into a new sea,
Where all was calm and warm, and where no tower
Of ragged ice upreared itself. On, on
I floated, while some lovely fantasy
Seemed stealing my true sense—so fair the scene.
Huge lillies, which no tropic land might boast,
Slept on the water—like embodied moonlight;
A mellow lustre bathed all things; sweet birds
With rainbow plumage fluttered through the air,
And this fair island dawned upon my sight.
Soon on the shore rested my vessel's prow,
And I, ascending the bright paths which spread
Through bowers of wond'rous beauty, came to thee,
The central light of all this loveliness.
This is my sin, if thou wilt judge it such.
But love, the fondest that did ever throb
In the warm heart of any mortal maid,
It was, which brought me. It must be, sweet Queen
That somewhere in thy mystical domains
My Bertho dwells. Do'st know him? Is he well?
And does he for his fond-eyed Olive look,
With hollow shadows underneath his brows
From too much watching?"