FullReads

LXIII.

“Surely,” quoth she, “he sleeps, the senseless thing,
Oppress’d and faint with toiling in the stream!”
Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing
So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream;
Meanwhile, her lily fingers task to twine
His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine.

LXIV.

“O lovely boy!”–thus she attuned her voice,–
“Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid’s home,
My love-mate thou shalt be, and true heart’s choice;
How have I long’d such a twin-self should come,–
A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befell,
My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell.”

LXV.

“Here thou shalt live, beneath this secret dome,
An ocean-bow’r, defended by the shade
Of quiet waters, a cool emerald gloom
To lap thee all about. Nay, be not fray’d,
Those are but shady fishes that sail by
Like antic clouds across my liquid sky!”

LXVI.

“Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales,
And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins;
They flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails,
And winking stars are kindled at their fins;
These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood,
And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food.”

LXVII.

“Lo! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells,
My flow’rets those, that never pine for drouth;
Myself did plant them in the dappled shells,
That drink the wave with such a rosy mouth,–
Pearls wouldst thou have beside? crystals to shine?
I had such treasures once,–now they are thine.”

LXVIII.

“Now, lay thine ear against this golden sand,
And thou shalt hear the music of the sea,
Those hollow tunes it plays against the land,–
Is’t not a rich and wondrous melody?
I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone
I heard the languages of ages gone!”

LXIX.

“I too can sing when it shall please thy choice,
And breathe soft tunes through a melodious shell,
Though heretofore I have but set my voice
To some long sighs, grief-harmonized, to tell
How desolate I fared;–but this sweet change
Will add new notes of gladness to my range!”

LXX.

“Or bid me speak, and I will tell thee tales,
Which I have framed out of the noise of waves;
Ere now I have communed with senseless gales,
And held vain colloquies with barren caves;
But I could talk to thee whole days and days,
Only to word my love a thousand ways.”

LXXI.

“But if thy lips will bless me with their speech,
Then ope, sweet oracles! and I’ll be mute;
I was born ignorant for thee to teach,
Nay all love’s lore to thy dear looks impute;
Then ope thine eyes, fair teachers, by whose light
I saw to give away my heart aright!”

LXXII.

But cold and deaf the sullen creature lies
Over her knees, and with concealing clay,
Like hoarding Avarice, locks up his eyes,
And leaves her world impoverish’d of day;
Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead,
But there the door is closed against her need.

LXXIII.

Surely he sleeps,–so her false wits infer!
Alas! poor sluggard, ne’er to wake again!
Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir
That might denote a vision in his brain;
Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long,
Twice she hath reach’d the ending of her song.

LXXIV.

Therefore ’tis time she tells him to uncover
Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears,
Whereby her April face is shaded over,
Like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears;
Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets,
Herself must open those lock’d-up cabinets.