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| UNDER the eaves of a Southern sky, | |
| Where the cloud-roof bends to the ocean-floor, | |
| Hid in lonely seas, the Bermoothes lie,— | |
| An emerald cluster that Neptune bore | |
| Away from the covetous earth-gods’ sight, | 5 |
| And placed in a setting of sapphire light. | |
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| Prospero’s realm, and Miranda’s isles, | |
| Floating to music of Ariel | |
| Upon fantasy’s billow, that glows and smiles | |
| Flushing response to the lovely spell,— | 10 |
| Tremulous color and outline seem | |
| Lucent as glassed in a life-like dream. | |
| |
| And away and afar as in dreams we drift | |
| Glimmer the blossoming orange groves; | |
| And the dolphin-tints of the waters shift, | 15 |
| And the angel-fish through the pure lymph moves | |
| Like the gleam of a rainbow; and soft clouds sweep | |
| Over isle and wave like the wings of sleep. | |
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| Deepens the dream into memory now: | |
| The straight roads cut through the cedar hills, | 20 |
| The coral cliffs, and the roofs of snow, | |
| And the crested cardinal-bird, that trills | |
| A carol clear as the ripple of red | |
| He made in the air as he flashed overhead. | |
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| Through pathways trodden of many feet | 25 |
| The gray little ground-dove follows and cooes; | |
| Yonder blue-throat stirs to a ballad sweet | |
| As ever was mingled with Northern dews; | |
| And the boatswain-bird from the calm lagoon | |
| Lifts his white length into cloudless noon. | 30 |
| |
| See the banana’s broad pennons the wind | |
| Has torn into shreds in his tropical mood! | |
| Look at the mighty old tamarind, | |
| That bore fruit in Saladin’s babyhood: | |
| See the pomegranates begin to burn, | 35 |
| And the roses, roses, at every turn! | |
| |
| Into high calms of the sunny air | |
| The aloe climbs with her golden flower, | |
| While sentinel yucca and prickly-pear | |
| With lance and with bayonet guard her bower, | 40 |
| And the life-leaf creeps by its fibred edge | |
| To hang out gay bells from the jutting ledge. | |
| |
| A glory of oleander bloom | |
| Borders every bend of the craggy road; | |
| Lemon and spice trees with rare perfume | 45 |
| Lingering cloud-fleets heavily load; | |
| And over the beauty and over the balm | |
| Rises the crown of the royal palm. | |
| |
| Far into the hillside’s caverns wind: | |
| Pillar and ceiling of stalactite | 50 |
| Mirrored in lakes the red torches find; | |
| Corridors zigzag from light to light; | |
| And the long fern swings down the slippery stair | |
| Over thresholds curtained with maiden-hair. | |
| |
| Outside, with a motion weirdly slow, | 55 |
| The mangrove walks through secluded coves, | |
| Leaning on crutch-like boughs, that grow | |
| To a rooted network of thickets and groves, | |
| Where, sheltered by jagged rock-shelves wide, | |
| Eeriest sprites of the deep might hide. | 60 |
| |
| Under this headland cliff as you row, | |
| Follow its bastioned layers down | |
| Into fathomless crystal far below | |
| Vision or ken: spite of old renown, | |
| So massive a wall could Titan erect | 65 |
| As the little coralline architect? | |
| |
| Against the dusk arches of surf-worn caves, | |
| In a shimmer of beryl eddies the tide, | |
| Or brightens to topaz where the waves | |
| Outlined in foam on the reef subside, | 70 |
| Or shades into delicate opaline bands | |
| Dreamily lapsing on pale pink sands. | |
| |
| Wherever you wander the sea is in sight, | |
| With its changeable turquoise green and blue, | |
| And its strange transparence of limpid light. | 75 |
| You can watch the work that the Nereids do, | |
| Down, down, where their purple fans unfurl, | |
| Planting their coral and sowing their pearl. | |
| |
| Who knows the spot where Atlantis sank? | |
| Myths of a lovely drowned continent | 80 |
| Homeless drift over waters blank: | |
| What if these reefs were her monument? | |
| Isthmus and cavernous cape may be | |
| Her mountain-summits escaped from the sea. | |
| |
| Spirits alone in these islands dwelt | 85 |
| All the dumb, dim years ere Columbus sailed, | |
| The old voyagers said; and it might be spelt | |
| Into dream-book of legend, if wonders failed, | |
| They were demons that shipwrecked Atlantis, affrayed | |
| At the terror of silence themselves had made. | 90 |
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| Whatever their burthen, the winds have a sound | |
| As of muffled voices that, sighing, bewail | |
| An unchronicled sorrow, around and around | |
| Whispering and hushing a half-told tale,— | |
| A musical mystery, filling the air | 95 |
| With its endless pathos of vague despair. | |
| |
| And again into fantasy’s billowy play | |
| Ripples memory back with elusive change; | |
| For chrysolite oceans, a blank of gray, | |
| Fringed with the films of a mirage strange,— | 100 |
| A shimmering blur of blossom and gleam: | |
| Can it be Bermoothes? or is it a dream? | |
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