So saying, this young soul in age’s mask

      Went forward with the Carian side by side:

      Resuming quickly thus; while ocean’s tide

      Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel’d sands

      Took silently their foot-prints.

      “My soul stands

      Now past the midway from mortality,

      And so I can prepare without a sigh

      To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.

      I was a fisher once, upon this main,

      And my boat danc’d in every creek and bay;

      Rough billows were my home by night and day,–

      The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had

      No housing from the storm and tempests mad,

      But hollow rocks,–and they were palaces

      Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:

      Long years of misery have told me so.

      Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.

      One thousand years!–Is it then possible

      To look so plainly through them? to dispel

      A thousand years with backward glance sublime?

      To breathe away as ‘twere all scummy slime

      From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,

      And one’s own image from the bottom peep?

      Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,

      My long captivity and moanings all

      Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum,

      The which I breathe away, and thronging come

      Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

      “I touch’d no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:

      I was a lonely youth on desert shores.

      My sports were lonely, ‘mid continuous roars,

      And craggy isles, and sea-mew’s plaintive cry

      Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.

      Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen

      Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,

      Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,

      When a dread waterspout had rear’d aloft

      Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe

      To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe

      My life away like a vast sponge of fate,

      Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,

      Has dived to its foundations, gulph’d it down,

      And left me tossing safely. But the crown

      Of all my life was utmost quietude:

      More did I love to lie in cavern rude,

      Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune’s voice,

      And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!

      There blush’d no summer eve but I would steer

      My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear

      The shepherd’s pipe come clear from aery steep,

      Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:

      And never was a day of summer shine,

      But I beheld its birth upon the brine:

      For I would watch all night to see unfold

      Heaven’s gates, and Æthon snort his morning gold

      Wide o’er the swelling streams: and constantly

      At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,

      My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.

      The poor folk of the sea-country I blest

      With daily boon of fish most delicate:

      They knew not whence this bounty, and elate

      Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

      “Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach

      At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!

      Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began

      To feel distemper’d longings: to desire

      The utmost privilege that ocean’s sire

      Could grant in benediction: to be free

      Of all his kingdom. Long in misery

      I wasted, ere in one extremest fit

      I plung’d for life or death. To interknit

      One’s senses with so dense a breathing stuff

      Might seem a work of pain; so not enough

      Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,

      And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt

      Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;

      Forgetful utterly of self-intent;

      Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow.

      Then, like a new fledg’d bird that first doth shew

      His spreaded feathers to the morrow chill,

      I tried in fear the pinions of my will.

      ’Twas freedom! and at once I visited

      The ceaseless wonders of this ocean-bed.

      No need to tell thee of them, for I see

      That thou hast been a witness–it must be–

      For these I know thou canst not feel a drouth,

      By the melancholy corners of that mouth.

      So I will in my story straightway pass

      To more immediate matter. Woe, alas!

      That love should be my bane! Ah, Scylla fair!

      Why did poor Glaucus ever–ever dare

      To sue thee to his heart? Kind stranger-youth!

      I lov’d her to the very white of truth,

      And she would not conceive it. Timid thing!

      She fled me swift as seabird on the wing,

      Round every isle, and point, and promontory,

      From where large Hercules wound up his story

      Far as Egyptian Nile. My passion grew

      The more, the more I saw her dainty hue

      Gleam delicately through the azure clear:

      Until ’twas too fierce agony to bear;

      And in that agony, across my grief

      It flash’d, that Circe might find some relief–

      Cruel enchantress! So above the water

      I rear’d my head, and look’d for Phœbus’