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| I DREAMT 1 that I went down into the sea | |
| Unpain’d amid the waters—and a world | |
| Of splended wrecks, formless and numberless, | |
| Broke on my vision. It did seem the skies | |
| Were o’er me pure as fancy—yet waves | 5 |
| Did rattle round my head, and fill mine ears | |
| Like the measureless roar of the far fight | |
| When battle has set up her trumpet shout! | |
| I seem’d to breathe the air; and yet the sea | |
| Kept dallying with my life as I sunk down. | 10 |
| ’T was in the fitful fashion of a dream— | |
| Water and air—walking, and yet no earth. | |
| The deep seem’d bare and dry—and yet I went | |
| With a rude dashing round my reeking face, | |
| Until my outstretched and trembling feet | 15 |
| Stood still upon a bed of glittering pearls! | |
| The hot sun was right over me, at noon— | |
| Sudden it wither’d up the ocean—till | |
| I seem’d amidst a waste of shapeless clay. | |
| A thousand bones were whitening in his rays, | 20 |
| Mass upon mass,—confused and without end. | |
| I walk’d on the parch’d wilderness, and saw | |
| The hopeless beauty of a lifeless world! | |
| Wealth that once made some poor vain heart grow lig | |
| And leap with it into the flood, was there | 25 |
| Clutch’d in the last mad agony. And gold, | |
| That makes of life a happiness and curse— | |
| That vaunts on earth its brilliancy, lay here— | |
| An outcast tyrant in his loneliness— | |
| Beggar’d by jewels that ne’er shone through blood | 30 |
| Upon the brow of kings! Here there were all | |
| The bright beginnings and the costly ends, | |
| Which envied man enjoys and expiates,— | |
| Splendor, and death—silence, and human hopes— | |
| Gems, and smooth bones—life’s pageantry! the cross | 35 |
| That thought to save some wretch in his late need | |
| Hugg’d in its last idolatry—all, all | |
| Lay here in deathly brotherhood—no breath— | |
| No sympathy—no sound—no motion—and no hope | |
| I stood and listen’d,— | 40 |
| The eternal flood rush’d to its desolate grave! | |
| And I could hear above me all the waves | |
| Go bellowing to their bounds! Still I strode on, | |
| Journeying amid the brightest of earth’s things | |
| Where yet was never life, nor hope, nor joy! | 45 |
| My eye could not but look, and my ear hear; | |
| For now strange sights, and beautiful, and rare, | |
| Seem’d order’d from the deep through the rich prism | |
| Above me—and sounds undulated through | |
| The surges, till my soul grew mad with visions! | 50 |
| Beneath the canopy of waters I could see | |
| Palaces and cities crumbled—and the ships | |
| Sunk in the engorging whirlpool, while the laugh | |
| Of revelry went wild along their decks, and ere | |
| The oath was strangled in their swollen throats;— | 55 |
| For there they lay, just hurried to one grave | |
| With horrible contortions and fix’d eyes | |
| Waving among the cannon, as the surge | |
| Would slowly lift them—and their streaming hair | |
| Twining around the blades that were their pride. | 60 |
| And there were two lock’d in each other’s arms, | |
| And they were lovers! | |
| Oh God, how beautiful! cheek to cheek | |
| And heart to heart upon that splendid deep, | |
| A bridal bed of pearls!—a burial | 65 |
| Worthy of two so young and innocent. | |
| And they did seem to lie there, like two gems | |
| The fairest in the halls of ocean—both | |
| Sepulchred in love—a tearless death—one look, | |
| One wish, one smile, one mantle for their shroud, | 70 |
| One hope, one kiss—and that not yet quite cold! | |
| How beautiful to die in such fidelity! | |
| E’er yet the curse has ripen’d, or the heart | |
| Begins to hope for death as for a joy, | |
| And feels its streams grow thicker, till they cloy | 75 |
| With wishes that have sicken’d and grown old. | |
| I saw their cheeks were pure and passionless, | |
| And all their love had pass’d into a smile, | |
| And in that smile they died! | |
| Sudden a battle roll’d above my head, | 80 |
| And there came down a flash into the deep | |
| Illumining its dim chambers—and it pass’d; | |
| The waters shudder’d—and a thousand sounds | |
| Sung hellish echoes through the cavern’d waste. | |
| The blast was screaming on the upper wave, | 85 |
| And as I look’d above me I could see | |
| The ships go booming through the murky storm, | |
| Sails rent—masts staggering—and a spectre crew,— | |
| Blood mingled with the foam bathing their bows,— | |
| And I could hear their shrieks as they went on | 90 |
| Crying of murder to their bloody foes! | |
| A form shot downward close at my feet; | |
| His hand still grasp’d the steel—and his red eye | |
| Was full of curses even in his death;— | |
| For he had been flung into the abyss | 95 |
| By fellow men before his heart was cold! | |
| Again I stood beside the lovely pair;— | |
| The storm and conflict were as they ’d not been. | |
| I stood and shriek’d and laugh’d, and yet no voice, | |
| That I could hear, came in my madness; | 100 |
| It hardly seem’d that they were dead—so calm, | |
| So beautiful! the sea-stars round them shone, | |
| Like emblems of their souls so cold and pure! | |
| The bending grass wept silent over them, | |
| Truer than any friend on earth—their tomb | 105 |
| The jewelry of the ocean, and their dirge | |
| The everlasting music of its roar. | |
| I seem’d to stand wretched in dreamy thought, | |
| Cursing the constancy of human hearts | |
| And vanity of human hopes—and felt | 110 |
| As I have felt on earth in my sick hours;— | |
| How thankless was this legacy of breath | |
| To those who knew the wo of a scathed brain! | |
| Oh ocean—ocean! if thou coverest up | |
| The ruins of a proud and broken soul, | 115 |
| And givest such peace and solitude as this, | |
| Thy depths are heaven to man’s ingratitude | |
| I seem’d to struggle in an agony; | |
| My streaming tears gush’d out to meet the wave; | |
| I woke in terror, and the beaded sweat | 120 |
| Coursed down my temples like a very rain, | |
| As though I had just issued from the sea! | |
