Classic Poem

Till these grey mountains seemed a wayside heap,
And all their pluming pines a petty moss,
I silently rowed onward, and did keep
A steady path the mighty main across;
But then I loosed my bark, and left her free
To dance her own glad measure with the sea,
And, plunging as a plummet plunges, stood
'Mid the sere purples of the barren wood
Whose sapless boughs, in sullen beauty drest,
Were never brightened by a spark of dew,
Or heard a song, or cherished any nest,
Or shook with any wind that ever blew.

Then as I wandered on that oozeless sand,
Catching the sharp salt bubbles of the air,
I heard a silver song, and saw the rare
And tender form of soft Cymodoce
Pressing a rock, more innocently fair
Than feather shed by swan upon the sea,
Or moonlight sleeping fearless on the foam
Of hurrying falls. One marble-mocking hand
Upheld the golden thicket of the hair
Where one seemed lost, as with an amber comb
It parted shell-born pearls from pearls of brine;
And, sea-blooms reddening all its deeps divine,
Low at her helpless feet her mirror lay;
I seized the magic toy, and made it mine,
And like a shaft dismissed I sped away.

Here you may see the prize, is it not gay?
Glowing with burnish of unspotted gold,
Bordered with quaintest shells, and, day by day,
Changeful in splendour as the waters bold
Sway the rock-mantling weeds, or, backward rolled,
Leave a salt glister on the glaring bay.

But when low, broad, and heavy in the west
Hangs the departing moon, and Autumn cold
Moans to her moaning waters, and the crest
Of every mounting wave is rimmed with gold,
There sounds a somewhat from the chiding seas,
As if they heaved around an ancient wrong,
And sad laments of spirits ill at ease
Murmur and mourn our boat-lined beach along;
And some day I will take the mirror down;
And, rowing far from the steep-streeted town,
Will hold it forth, until a whiter hand
Rises to grasp it; and Cymodoce,
Pleased with the late repentance of the land,
Hushes the doleful music of the sea.