The Witch's Whelp

Along the shore the slimy brine-pits yawn,
Covered with thick green scum; the billows rise,
And fill them to the brim with clouded foam,
And then subside, and leave the scum again;
The ribbed sand is full of hollow gulfs,
Where monsters from the waters come and lie:
Great serpents bask at noon among the rocks,
To me no terror; coil on coil they roll
Back to their holes, before my flying feet;
The Dragon of the Sea, my mother's god,
Enormous Setebos, comes here to sleep;
Him I molest not; when he flaps his wing
A whirlwind rises, when he swims the deep
It threatens to engulf the trembling isle.
Sometimes when winds do blow, and clouds are dark,
I seek the blasted wood, whose barkless trunks
Are bleached with summer suns; the creaking trees
Stoop down to me, and swing me right and left
Through crashing limbs, but not a jot care I:
The thunder breaks o'erhead, and in their lairs
The panthers roar; from out the stormy clouds
With hearts of fire, sharp lightnings rain around
And split the oaks; not faster lizards run
Before the snake up the slant trunks than I;
Not faster down, sliding with hands and feet.
I stamp upon the ground, and adders rouse
Sharp-eyed, with poisonous fangs; beneath the leaves
They couch, or under rocks, and roots of trees
Felled by the winds; through briery undergrowth
They slide with hissing tongues, beneath my feet
To writhe, or in my fingers squeezed to death.
There is a wild and solitary pine,
Deep in the meadows; all the island birds
From far and near fly there, and learn new songs;
Something imprisoned in its wrinkled bark
Wails for its freedom; when the bigger light
Burns in mid-heaven, and dew elsewhere is dried,
There it still falls; the quivering leaves are tongues,
And load the air with syllables of wo.
One day I thrust my spear within a cleft
No wider than its point, and something shrieked,
And falling cones did pelt me sharp as hail:
I picked the seeds that grew between their plates,
And strung them round my neck, with sea-mew eggs.
Hard by are swamps and marshes, reedy fens
Knee-deep in water; monsters wade therein
Thick-set with plated scales; sometimes in troops
They crawl on slippery banks; sometimes they lash
The sluggish waves, among themselves at war;
Often I heave great rocks from off the crags,
And crush their bones; often I push my spear
Deep in their drowsy eyes, at which they howl
And chase me inland; then I mount their humps
And prick them back again, unwieldy, slow:
At night the wolves are howling round the place,
And bats sail there athwart the silver light,
Flapping their wings; by day in hollow trees
They hide, and slink into the gloom of dens.
We live, my mother Sycorax and I,
In caves with bloated toads and crested snakes;
She can make charms, and philters, and brew storms,
And call the great Sea Dragon from his deeps:
Nothing of this know I, nor care to know;
Give me the milk of goats in gourds or shells,
The flesh of birds and fish, berries, and fruit,
Nor want I more, save all day long to lie,
And hear, as now, the voices of the sea.