Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Bottom of the Sea

The Bottom of the Sea.

The floor is of sand like the mountain-drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift
Their boughs where the tides and billows flow.

The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and waves are absent there;
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water;
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter.

There, with a light and easy motion,
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea.

And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.

And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar;
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore,—

Then far below, in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and goldfish rove;
Where the waters murmur tranquilly
Through the bending twigs in the coral grove.