again in the sea--
A melancholy, tedious task,
And useless as my own life.

The waves murmur, the sea mews scream,
Old recollections possess me;
Forgotten dreams, banished visions,
Tormentingly sweet, uprise.

There lives a woman in the North,
A beautiful woman, royally beautiful.
Her slender, cypress-like form
Is swathed in a light, white raiment.
Her locks, in their dusky fullness,
Like a blessed night,
Streaming from her braid-crowned head,
Curl softly as a dream
Around the sweet, pale face;
And from the sweet pale face
Large and powerful beams an eye,
Like a black sun.
Oh thou black sun, how oft,
How rapturously oft, I drank from thee
The wild flames of inspiration!
And stood and reeled, intoxicated with fire.
Then there hovered a smile as mild as a dove,
About the arched, haughty lips.
And the arched, haughty lips
Breathed forth words as sweet as moonlight,
And delicate as the fragrance of the rose.
And my soul soared aloft,
And flew like an eagle up into the heavens.

Silence ye waves and sea mews!
All is over! joy and hope--
Hope and love! I lie on the ground
An empty, shipwrecked man,
And press my glowing face
Into the moist sand.

IV. SUNSET.

The beautiful sun
Has quietly descended into the sea.
The surging water is already tinted
By dusky night--
But still the red of evening
Sprinkles it with golden lights.
And the rushing might of the tide
Presses toward the shore the white waves,
That merrily and nimbly leap
Like woolly flocks of sheep,
Which at evening the singing shepherd boy
Drives homeward.

"How beautiful is the sun!"
Thus spake after a long silence, the friend
Who wandered with me on the beach.
And, half in jest, half in sober sadness,
He assured me that the sun
Was a beautiful woman, who had for policy
Espoused the old god of the sea.
All day she wanders joyously
In the lofty heavens, decked with purple,
And sparkling with diamonds;
Universally beloved, universally admired
By all creatures of the globe,