climes,
And it is fuller of misery
And of death, a thousand times!
The land has peaceful flocks and herds,
And sweet birds singing round;
But a myriad monstrous, hideous things
Within the sea are found--
Things all misshapen, slimy, cold,
Writhing, and strong, and thin,
And waterspouts, and whirlpools wild,
That draw the fair ship in.
I've heard of the diver to the depths
Of the ocean forced to go,
To bring up the pearl and the twisted shell
From the fathomless caves below;
I've heard of the things in those dismal gulfs,
Like fiends that hemm'd him round--
I would not lead a diver's life
For every pearl that's found.
And I've heard how the sea-snake, huge and dark,
In the arctic flood doth roll;
He hath coil'd his tail, like a cable strong,
All round and round the pole:
And they say, when he stirs in the sea below,
The ice-rocks split asunder--
The mountains huge of the ribbed ice--
With a deafening crack like thunder.
There's many an isle man wots not of,
Where the air is heavy with groans;
And the bottom o' th' sea, the wisest say,
Is covered with dead men's bones.
I'll tell thee what: there's many a ship
In the wild North Ocean frore,
That has lain in the ice a thousand years,
And will lie a thousand more;
And the men--each one is frozen there
In the place where he did stand;
The oar he pull'd, the rope he threw,
Is frozen in his hand.
The sun shines there, but it warms them not;
Their bodies are wintry cold:
They are wrapp'd in ice that grows and grows,
Solid, and white, and old!
And there's many a haunted desert rock,
Where seldom ship doth go--
Where unburied men, with fleshless limbs,
Are moving to and fro:
They people the cliffs, they people the caves,--
A ghastly company!--
never sail'd there in a ship myself,
But I know that such there be.
And oh! the hot and horrid track
Of the Ocean of the Line!
There are millions of the negro men
Under that burning brine.
The ocean sea doth moan and moan,
Like an uneasy sprite;
And the waves are white with a fiendish fire
That burneth all the night.
'Tis a frightful thing to sail along,
Though a pleasant wind may blow,
When we think what a host of misery
Lies down in the sea below!
Didst ever hear of a little boat,
And in her there were three;
They had not