A Vision of the Mermaids
Rowing, I reach’d a rock – the sea was low – / Which the tides cover in their overflow, / Marking the spot, when they have gurgled o’er, / With a thin floating veil of water hoar. / A mile astern lay the blue shores away; / And it was at the setting of the day. / Plum-purple was the west; but spikes of light / Spear’d open lustrous gashes, crimson-white; / (Where the eye fix’d, fled the encrimsoning spot, / And, gathering, floated where the gaze was not;) / And through their parting lids there came and went / Keen glimpses of the inner firmament: / Fair beds they seem’d of water-lily flakes / Clustering entrancingly in beryl lakes: / Anon, across their swimming splendour strook, / An intense line of throbbing blood-light shook / A quivering pennon; then, for eye too keen, / Ebb’d back beneath its snowy lids, unseen. / Now all things rosy turn’d: the west had grown / To an orb’d rose, which, by hot pantings blown / Apart, betwixt ten thousand petall’d lips / By interchange gasp’d splendour and eclipse. / The zenith melted to a rose of air; / The waves were rosy-lipp’d; the crimson glare / Shower’d the cliffs and every fret and spire / With garnet wreathes and blooms of rosy-budded fire. / Then, looking on the waters, I was ware / Of something drifting through delighted air, / – An isle of roses, – and another near; – / And more, on each hand, thicken, and appear / In shoals of bloom; as in unpeopled skies, / Save by two stars, more crowding lights arise, / And planets bud where’er we turn our mazèd eyes. / I gazed unhinder’d: Mermaids six or seven, / Ris’n from the deeps to gaze on sun and heaven, / Cluster’d in troops and halo’d by the light, / Those Cyclads made that thicken’d on my sight. / This was their manner: one translucent crest / Of tremulous film, more subtle than the vest / Of dewy gorse blurr’d with the gossamer fine, / From crown to tail-fin floating, fringed the spine, / Droop’d o’er the brows like Hector’s casque, and sway’d / In silken undulations, spurr’d and ray’d / With spikèd quills all of intensest hue; / And was as tho’ some sapphire molten-blue / Were vein’d and streak’d with dusk-deep lazuli, / Or tender pinks with bloody Tyrian dye. / From their white waists a silver skirt was spread / To mantle o’er the tail, such as is shed / Around the Water-Nymphs in fretted falls, / At red Pompeii on medallion’d walls. / A tinted fin on either shoulder hung: / Their pansy-dark or bronzen locks were strung / With coral, shells, thick-pearlèd cords, whate’er / The abysmal Ocean hoards of strange and rare. / Some trail’d the Nautilus: or on the swell / Tugg’d the boss’d, smooth-lipp’d, giant Strombus-shell. / Some carried the sea-fan; some round the head / With lace of rosy weed were chapleted; / One bound o’er dripping gold a turquoise-gemm’d / Circle of astral flowerets – diadem’d / Like an Assyrian prince, with buds unsheath’d / From flesh-flowers of the rock; but more were wreath’d / With the dainty-delicate fretted fringe of fingers / Of that jacinthine thing, that, where it lingers / Broiders the nets with fans of amethyst / And silver films, beneath with pearly mist, / The Glaucus cleped; others small braids encluster’d / Of glassy-clear Aeolis, metal-lustred / With growths of myriad feelers, crystalline / To show the crimson streams that inward shine, / Which, lightening o’er the body rosy-pale, / Like shiver’d rubies’ dance or sheen of sapphire frail. / Then saw I sudden from the waters break / Far off a Nereid company, and shake / From wings swan-fledged a wheel of watery light / Flickering with sunny spokes, and left and right / Plunge orb’d in rainbow arcs, and trample and tread / The satin-purfled smooth to foam, and spread / Slim-pointed sea-gull plumes, and droop behind / One scarlet feather trailing to the wind; / Then, like a flock of sea-fowl mounting higher, / Thro’ crimson-golden floods pass swallow’d into fire. / Soon – as when Summer of his sister Spring / Crushes and tears the rare enjewelling, / And boasting “I have fairer things than these” / Plashes amidst the billowy apple-trees / His lusty hands, in gusts of scented wind / Swirling out bloom till all the air is blind / With rosy foam and pelting blossom and mists / Of driving vermeil-rain; and, as he lists, / The dainty onyx-coronals deflowers, / A glorious wanton; – all the wrecks in showers / Crowd down upon a stream, and, jostling thick / With bubbles bugle-eyed, struggle and stick / On tangled shoals that bar the brook – a crowd / Of filmy globes and rosy floating cloud: / So those Mermaidens crowded to my rock, / And thicken’d, like that drifted bloom, the flock / Sun-flush’d, until it seem’d their father Sea / Had gotten him a wreath of sweet Spring-broidery. / Careless of me they sported: some would plash / The languent smooth with
