Classic Poem

Here Neptune ruled: here Triton blew his horn;
Here silver-footed Thetis loved to roam,
Or sit and watch her merry maidens comb
Their dripping tresses ere the son was born
Who taught a goddess, womanlike, to mourn.
Here father Proteus had his watery home,
And Golden Aphrodite from the foam
Outshone the glory of the golden dawn.

And now forlorn, forlorn, thy billows roar
Unpeopled of their denizens divine;
No more from those mysterious deeps of thine
Men hear strange voices echo as of yore,
Or see, at eve, a godlike presence shine
By foaming headland or by shelving shore.