Phosphorescence

Stars of the liquid, under firmament,

         Unquenchable fire, a mellow mystery,

         Like the soothed iris of a leopard’s eye

When  o’er her cubs she purrs in full content;

No angry flash, no petulant sparkle sent

         From fires aerial with your beams can vie.

         Your gloves of molten silver, drifting by,

Gleam round my dripping oar, distinct, unblest,

The light its long sweep with a meteor’s trail

         That burns innocuous, while the bouncing boat,

Along its luminous furrow, seems to sail

The milky way, like Jason’s. If more pale

         This galaxy than that in heavens remote,

Not less the countless swarms that glittering in it float

Though distant bells the moon of night proclaim.

         See! what a day-break, like the dawn of doom!

         O’er the black cliffs the roaring breakers boom.

Leaping and crumbling into lurid flame!

The wide air burns with such a light as came

         From witch-oils blazing in a cavern’s gloom.

         Pale, dismal fires through which the dark crags loom

Like fettered giants the floods of Aetna tame!

Far round the curving beaches the dim glow

         Marks where the seas came, line by line,

Advancing with a shout, and forward throw

         Their wild Greek-fire that burns beneath the brine;

Then, in their swift recoiling to the abyss,

Along the sands ye seem to hear it singe and hiss!