'T was down among the Thimble Isles
That strew for many "liquid miles"
The waters of Long Island Sound:
Our yacht lay in a cove; around
The rocky isles with cedars green
And channels winding in between:
And here a low, black reef was spread,
And there a sunken "nigger-head"
Dimpled the surface of the tide.
From one tall island's cliffy side
We heard the shaggy goats that fed:
The gulls wheeled screaming overhead
Or settled in a snowy flock
Far out upon the lonely rock
Which, like a pillar, seemed to show
Some drowned acropolis below.
Meanwhile, in the warm sea about,
With many a plunge and jolly shout,
Our crew enjoyed their morning bath.
The hairy skipper in his wrath
Lay cursing on the gunwale's rim:
He loved a dip but could not swim;
So, now and then with plank afloat
He'd struggle feebly round the boat
And o'er the side climb puffing in,
Scraping wide areas off his skin,
Then lie and sun each hirsute limb
Once more upon the gunwale's rim
And shout, with curses unavailing,
"Come out! There's wind: let's do some sailing."
A palm-leaf hat, that here and there
Bobbed on the water, showed him where
Some venturous swimmer outward bound
Escaped beyond his voice's sound.
All heedless of their skipper's call,
One group fought for the upset yawl.
The conqueror sat astride the keel
And deftly pounded with his heel
The hands that clutched his citadel,
Which showed—at distance—like the shell
Round which, unseen, the Naiad train
Sport naked on the middle main.
Myself had drifted far away,
Meanwhile, from where the sail-boat lay,
Till all unbroken I could hear
The wave's low whisper in my ear,
And at the level of mine eye
The blue vibration met the sky.
Sometimes upon my back I lay
And watched the clouds, while I and they
Were wafted effortless along.—
Sudden I seemed to hear a song:
Yet not a song, but some weird strain
As though the inarticulate main
Had found a voice whose human tone
Interpreted its own dull moan;
Its foamy hiss; its surfy roar;
Its gentle lapping on the shore;
Its noise of subterranean waves
That grumble in the sea-cliff caves;
Its whish among the drifting miles
Of gulf-weed from the Indian Isles:—
All—all the harmonies were there
Which ocean makes with earth or air.
Turning I saw a sunken ledge
Bared by the ebb, along whose edge
The matted sea-weed dripped: thereon,
Betwixt the dazzle of the sun
And the blue shimmer of the sea,
I saw—or else I seemed to see
A mermaid, crooning a wild song,
Combing with arm uplifted long
The hair that shed its meshes black
Down the slope whiteness of her back.
She held a mirror in her hand,
Wherein she viewed sky, sea, and land,
Her beauty's background and its frame.
But now, as toward the rock I came,
All suddenly across the glass
Some startling image seemed to pass;
For her song rose into a scream,
Over her shoulders one swift gleam
Of eyes unearthly fell on me,
And, 'twixt the flashing of the sea
And the blind dazzle of the sun,
I saw the rock, but thereupon
She sat no longer 'gainst the blue;
Only across the reef there flew
One snow-white tern and vanished too.
But, coasting that lone island round,
Among the slippery kelp I found
A little oval glass that lay
Upturned and flashing in the ray
Of the down-looking sun. Thereto
With scarce believing eyes I drew
And took it captive
A while there
I rested in the mermaid's lair,
And felt the merry breeze that blew,
And watched the sharpies as they flew,
And snuffed the sea's breath thick with brine,
And basked me in the sun's warm shine;
Then with my prize I made my way
Once more to where the sail-boat lay.
I kept the secret—and the glass;
By day across its surface pass
The transient shapes of common things
Which chance within its oval brings.
But when at night I strive to sound
The darkness of its face profound,
Again I seem to hear the breeze
That curls the waves on summer seas;
I see the isles with cedars green;
The channels winding in between;
The coves with beaches of white sand;
The reefs where warning spindles stand;
And, through the multitudinous shimmer
Of waves and sun, again the glimmer
Of eyes unearthly falls on me,
Deep with the mystery of the sea.