their morning bath. The hairy skipper in his wrath Lay cursing on the gunwale's rim: He loved a dip but could not swim; So, now and then with plank afloat He'd struggle feebly round the boat And o'er the side climb puffing in, Scraping wide areas off his skin, Then lie and sun each hirsute limb Once more upon the gunwale's rim And shout, with curses unavailing, "Come out! There's wind: let's do some sailing." 

 A palm-leaf hat, that here and there Bobbed on the water, showed him where Some venturous swimmer outward bound Escaped beyond his voice's sound. All heedless of their skipper's call, One group fought for the upset yawl. The conqueror sat astride the keel And deftly pounded with his heel The hands that clutched his citadel, Which showed—at distance—like the shell Round which, unseen, the Naiad train Sport naked on the middle main. Myself had drifted far away, Meanwhile, from where the sail-boat lay, Till all unbroken I could hear The wave's low whisper in my ear, And at the level of mine eye The blue vibration met the sky. Sometimes upon my back I lay And watched the clouds, while I and they Were wafted effortless along.— Sudden I seemed to hear a song: Yet not a song, but some weird strain As though the inarticulate main Had found a voice whose human tone Interpreted its own dull moan; Its foamy hiss; its surfy roar; Its gentle lapping on the shore; Its noise of subterranean waves That grumble in the sea-cliff caves; Its whish among the drifting miles Of gulf-weed from the Indian Isles:— All—all the harmonies were there Which ocean makes with earth or air. Turning I saw a sunken ledge Bared by the ebb, along whose edge The matted sea-weed dripped: thereon, Betwixt the dazzle of the sun And the blue shimmer of the sea, I saw—or else I seemed to see A mermaid, crooning a wild song, Combing with arm uplifted long The hair that shed its meshes black Down the slope whiteness of her back. She held a mirror in her hand, Wherein she viewed sky, sea, and land, Her beauty's background and its frame. But now, as toward the rock I came, All suddenly across the glass Some startling image seemed to pass; For her song rose into a scream, Over her shoulders one swift gleam Of eyes unearthly fell on me, And, 'twixt the flashing of the sea And the blind dazzle of the sun, I saw the rock, but thereupon She sat no longer 'gainst the blue; Only across the reef there flew One snow-white tern and vanished too. But, coasting that lone island round, Among the slippery kelp I found A little oval glass that lay Upturned and flashing in the ray Of the down-looking sun. Thereto With scarce believing eyes I drew And took it captive A while there I rested in the mermaid's lair, And felt the merry breeze that blew, And watched 

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