r cradled babes:
And one wild sea-nymph reached and touched my hair--
I saw her through my dream!--and one unstrung
The pearls from out her own wave-wetted locks,
And flung them by me.

"The fresh morn waked me;
A current, gentle as a musical sound,
Swept the boat onward, as by magic power.
At times I thought, perchance, the nymphs beneath
Propelled it, but when I recalled my dream,
I knew some freak of nature, or some law,
By me uncomprehended, did the work.
At night I heard the naiads, in a tone
As soft as shepherd's reed, sing ocean-songs;
And sometimes, in the day, above the wave
I for a moment saw a lovely face,
Pearled in a clinging mass of shell-wreathed hair,
Peering upon me with strange, smiling eyes.
Gay fishes, in the sunlight gleaming, swam
With playful fires of evanescent hues;
And birds did sometimes rest their weary wings
Upon my shoulder, pecking at the fruit
Which I did share with them, though small my store.

"Thus on and on continuous days I fled;
No wind came now, blowing from flowery shores,
At times to startle me with dreams of home;
No more bewildering songs rose all the night
Around me; nor familiar faces glanced
An instant from the deep; nor long, fair fingers
Hung on the gilded prow.

"The Temperate Zone
Had floated by like a long stream of gold;
The Arctics lay before me, vast and drear;
The sea was green and rough; no gay fish darted
Like silver arrows from the quivering wave;
But monsters, with thick scales and hideous eyes,
Looked sullenly up in stupid wonderment,
While some swam to'ards me, with rapacious maws
Sharp-fanged and bloody, and exulting fins
Flapping with demon slowness their huge sides;--
And still I passed unhurt.

"Once round my boat
For many hours an old sea-dragon hovered.
His huge folds lay like rainbows on the sea,
And his two eyes, like suns, resplendent shone.
He seemed to guard thy realm, O, mighty Queen!
And, with the cunning power of those large eyes,
To awe intruders from thy frozen world.
So fearlessly my gaze repelled his own
I charmed this wary dragon of the North;
The eyes that erst had sparkled goldenly
With a malicious and infatuous brightness,
Grew lost and dreaming