Song of the Sea Nymphs

Merry & free is the life we live
     In the depths of the flashing brine,
Careless of all the skies may give,
     Rude tempest or calm sunshine.
Leaping about on the low, dim rocks,
     Or braiding the pale sea-flowers,
In the heavy coils of our waving locks,
     Deep down in our coral bowers.

Far over our heads looms up the crag
     Like a fettered giant’s brow,
By whose shaggy locks the wave would drag
     His sullen form even now;
For the dash of billows hurled from far
     Has sent to its mountain base
A hollow groan, & a fitful jar,
     As if startled from its place.

But many an age it has stood proof
     Against the storms o’er head.
As grain by grain our coral roof
     Rose pillared from ocean’s bed.
A thousand gales have furrowed its seams
     With the plow-share of the waves,
And a thousand suns sent struggling beams
     To its dim & weed-hung caves
The light of a million flashing gems
     Illumines our joyous hall,
From crumbling, orient diadems
     And carcanets, let fall.

Fall many a harrowing storm we’ve seen
     As it rent the upper deep,
But none could trouble the calm serene
     In the chambers of our deep.
Many & many a Sailor Boy
     Has sunk to our silent vales,
Aroused from the dreams of home & joy,
     To die, by the pirate gales.
Gently away, where the emerald beams
     Make glad our loveliest grot,
Where the red carbuncle in splendor gleams,
     And the guant shark cometh not,
We lay them down to their long, long sleep
     Till a Day that is bruited above,
When a Trumpet shall call them from the deep.
     To the arms of yearning love.
Tenderly round their polished limbs
     We weave the sea-flowers fair,
And over them sing our loveliest hymns
     To the shell-harp sweet & rare.

Ye may see our robes of rainbow hue
     In the breaker’s bounding spray,
And our plumes nod over the distant blue
     Where the white-caps scurry away.
Our prancing steeds, with never a rein,
     Ye may trace o’er their meadows green,
By the proud toss of the snowy mane
     And the beat of their hoofs unseen.
But the secrets, beautiful & dread,
     In a myriad fathoms hid.
Where never a glance of day was sped
     From the morning’s opening lid, —
The deep, deep things that we adore,

          No loyal Nymph may reveal
For the Sea-gods on their mythic lore
     Have set an inviolate seal.
Into the chambers of our gods
     Leviathan dare not pry,
And the great whale shuns their deep abodes
     As his huge bulk wallows by!