| |
| AS o’er the chasm I breathless hung, | |
| Thus from the depths the Siren sung: | |
| “Down, down into the womb, | |
| Of earth, the daylight’s tomb, | |
| Where the sun’s eyes | 5 |
| Never may shine, | |
| Nor fair moon rise | |
| With smile divine; | |
| Where caverns yawn | |
| Black as despair, | 10 |
| Fatally drawn | |
| I plunge down there; | |
| And with the bound | |
| The rocks resound, | |
| And round and round | 15 |
| My waves are wound | |
| Into the gaping rifts of the mid earth: | |
| O for the sunny springs where I took birth! | |
| The gentle rills, | |
| The tiny brimming fountain, | 20 |
| That, scooped in the warm bosom of the mountain, | |
| Each May shower overfills! | |
| Whence I and my fair sister came; and she | |
| Rolls her smooth silver flood along the way, | |
| That princes made for her, so royally, | 25 |
| Piercing the rock to give her ample sway. | |
| Down the bright sunny steep | |
| Her waters leap, | |
| Myrtle and bay and laurel and wild vine, | |
| A garland for her flowing tresses twine! | 30 |
| The green moss stars the rocks whereon she leaps, | |
| Over her breast the fragrant locust weeps; | |
| The air resounds with her wild shouts of laughter, | |
| The echoes of the hills in chorus after | |
| Repeat the sound, and in her silvery spray | 35 |
| Rainbows are woven by the light of day! | |
| Down in the valley she springs | |
| And sings, | |
| And the sky bends over | |
| Her, like a lover; | 40 |
| And glittering and sparkling her waters run, | |
| A bright sea of snow in the summer sun! | |
| |
| Darkness broods over me the while; | |
| Grim rocks that sweat | |
| With my cold clammy spray, | 45 |
| As down the hopeless way | |
| In one wild jet | |
| My tortured billows lash and leap and boil; | |
| So deep my bed of darkness lies, | |
| That scarce the voice of my great agony | 50 |
| Reaches the skies, | |
| And all ye see | |
| With fearful eyes | |
| Who question me, | |
| Is the gray whirling mist that covers all | 55 |
| As with a pall. | |
| Light! light upon the rocks! sudden and fierce | |
| The sharp flames pierce; | |
| Glaring upon my water | |
| Like the blood-hue of slaughter | 60 |
| A red torch flashes; | |
| As down my wild flood dashes | |
| Wide flaring brightness streams upon my foam, | |
| And flaming fire-wreaths come | |
| Hissing into my waves to find their doom | 65 |
| In the same blackness that devours me. | |
| The huge rocks grin, as with a sudden glee, | |
| At this strange visitation of the light, | |
| And they are made not beautiful, but bright, | |
| As all their horrid piles and masses show, | 70 |
| Hanging above, and heaped below, | |
| Searched by the ruddy glow. | |
| O, let me still in darkness dwell! | |
| Not in this hell | |
| Of lurid light, | 75 |
| That scares the night, | |
| Hence with the leaping glare, | |
| Whose fiery stare | |
| Reveals the secrets of my dismal bed; | |
| Hence with the voices that profane the dread | 80 |
| Of my dark chambers!”—thus the Siren cried, | |
| As o’er the rocky chasm’s black, hideous side | |
| I hung entranced with terror and dismay; | |
| And at that piteous cry I fled away. | |
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