hung in heaven!
Time and space were but elfin-sweet
Rock-bound pools for the dawn and even
To wade with their rosy feet.

Our pirate cavern faced the West:
We closed its door with screens of palm,
While some went out to seek the nest
Wherein the Phoenix, breathing balm,
Burns and dies to live for ever
(How should we dream we lived to die?)
And some would fish in the purple river
That thro' the hills brought down the sky.

And some would dive in the lagoon
Like sunbeams, and all round our isle
Swim thro' the lovely crescent moon,
Glimpsing, for breathless mile on mile,
The wild sea-woods that bloomed below,
The rainbow fish, the coral cave
Where vanishing swift as melting snow
A mermaid's arm would wave.

Then dashing shoreward thro' the spray
On sun-lit sands they cast them down,
Or in the white sea-daisies lay
With sun-stained bodies rosy-brown,
Content to watch the foam-bows flee
Across the shelving reefs and bars,
With wild eyes gazing out to sea
Like happy haunted stars.

IV

And O, the wild sea-maiden
Drifting through the starlit air,
With white arms blossom-laden
And the sea-scents in her hair:
Sometimes we heard her singing
The midnight forest through,
Or saw a soft hand flinging
Blossoms drenched with starry dew
Into the dreaming purple cave;
And, sometimes, far and far away
Beheld across the glooming wave
Beyond the dark lagoon,
Beyond the silvery foaming bar,
The black bright rock whereon she lay
Like a honey-coloured star
Singing to the breathless moon,
Singing in the silent night
Till the stars for sheer delight
Closed their eyes, and drowsy birds
In the midmost forest spray
Took their heads from out their wings,
Thinking--it is Ariel sings
And we must catch the witching words
And sing them o'er by day.

V

And then, there came a breath, a breath
Cool and strange and dark as death,
A stealing shadow, not of the earth
But fresh and wonder-wild as birth.
I know not when the hour began
That changed the child's heart in the man,
Or when the colours began to wane,
But all our roseate island lay
Stricken, as when an angel dies
With wings of rainbow-tinctured grain
Withering, and h