The Nereid

I

I saw one night a Nereid white
Arise from her coral caves:
Her sea-green curls were pale with pearls,
And her limbs were veiled with the waves.
Through the moonlit foam I saw her come
Up the billow-haunted shore--
And faint and sweet I heard her feet,
Foam-like, through the surf's long roar;
While ever the wind and the rolling waves
Kept time to her song of ocean caves,
That she sang to her harp of mist and moon,
Of moonbeam shell: this ocean tune:--

II

"Come follow, come follow, to caverns hollow,
That sound with the sighing sea!
Come follow me o'er the waters hoar!--
Come away, come away with me!
Come follow, oh, follow, to grottoes hollow,
And caves that are ocean-whist,
Where the sea-weeds twine and the star-fish shine,
And the rosy corals twist.

"Come follow me home on the wandering foam,
That rolls my world above!
My bosom shall bear thee safely where
The Sea-nymphs dream of love.
They will lie at thy feet and thy heart shall beat
To the music of their sighs;
They will lean to thy face and, like stars, thou shalt trace
Their radiant, love-lit eyes.

"Come away, come away! where, under the spray,
The haliötis glows,
The nautilus gleams and the sponge-grove dreams,
And the crimson dulse like sunset streams,
And the coral-forest grows.
Come away to my caves, my emerald caves,
From the moon and the sun deep hid!
Forget the world, down under the waves,--
The world of man that sighs and slaves,--
Forget the world, there under the waves,
In the arms of a Nereid!"