'TIS said that the ocean's unseen floor With beautiful verdure is covered o'er; That forests, with waving branches, grow In unpruned beauty, the depths below; And curious grottoes, and caverns deep, Through which the dark waters eternally sweep.
And shadowy vistas, and mystic dells, Empaved with the loveliest tinted shells; In the circling depths of whose roseate cells The tenderest breathings of music swells, Which sound through the waters that over them play, Like the echo of lute tones far away.
And there, too, are valleys and groves and bowers, And sloping hillocks o'erspread with flowers; And hanging mosses, and creeping vines, That sweetly o'er pearl-drifted leaflets twine,— Where pendant grasses, extended, lave Their swaying tresses beneath the wave;
And castles marine, with arabesque walls, And spacious chambers, and sounding falls, Enamelled with glittering diamonds bright, And rubies, and precious stones, whose light Sheds a halo of gorgeous reflections o'er The treasures that spangle the unseen floor.
Here the nymphs of the sea and the mermaids keep Their ocean festals within the deep, Secure from the monstrous creatures that move In the middle regions,—those realms above. For only those beautiful sprites, 'tis said, Are suffered those mystical spheres to tread.
