Till his spirits sank, and his limbs grew weak, For rugged and dim was his onward track, And he laughed as he jumped upon her back; He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist, He lashed her sides with an osier thong; And now, through evening's dewy mist, With leap and spring they bound along, Till the mountain's magic verge is past, And the beach of sand is reached at last. Soft and pale is the moony beam, With snowy shells and sparkling stones; In murmurings faint and distant moans; Is heard the splash of the sturgeon's leap, The elfin cast a glance around, As he lighted down from his courser toad, Then round his breast his wings he wound, And close to the river's brink he strode; He sprang on a rock, he breathed a prayer, Above his head his arms he threw, Then tossed a tiny curve in air, And headlong plunged in the waters blue. Up sprung the spirits of the waves From the sea-silk beds in their coral caves; With snail-plate armor, snatched in haste, On the mailed shrimp or the prickly prong; Some on the stony star-fish ride, Some on the back of the lancing squab, Fearlessly he skims along, His hope his high, and his limbs are strong; At his breast the tiny foam-bees rise, And hem him round on every side; The gritty star has rubbed him raw, And the crab has struck with his giant claw; He turned him round, and fled amain, And laid his cheek to the cleaving tide; And they stunned his ears with the scallop-stroke, When he reached the foot of the dogwood-tree. And he banned the water-goblins' spite, Giggling and laughing with all their might Soon he gathered the balsam dew From the sorrel-leaf and the henbane bud; Over each wound the balm he drew, And with cobweb lint he stanched the blood. The mild west-wind was soft and low, Ere dawning mounts her beamy car, He cast a saddened look around; But he felt new joy his bosom swell, When, glittering on the shadowed ground, He saw a purple muscle-shell; Thither he ran, and he bent him low, He heaved at the stern and he heaved at the bow, And he pushed her over the yielding sand Till he came to the verge of the haunted land. As ever fairy had paddled in, For she glowed with purple paint without, A sculler's notch in the stern he made, An oar he shaped of the bootle-blade; Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap, The imps of the river yell and rave. They had no power above the wave; But they heaved the billow before the prow, And they dashed the surge against her side, And they struck her keel with jerk and blow, Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide. She wimpled about to the pale moonbeam, Like a feather that floats on a wind-tossed stream; And momently athwart her track The quarl upreared his island back, And the fluttering scallop behind would float, But he bailed her out with his colen-bell, And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread, While on every side, like lightning, fell The heavy strokes of his bootle-blade. Onward still he held his way, Till he came where the column of moonshine lay, The brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim; And held his colen-goblet up To catch the drop in its crimson cup. With sweeping tail and quivering fin He plunged him in the deep again. |