And the shrill whistle of the boatswain's pipe
Seemed as a whisper in the ear of death[1];—
Born when her mother died! That fatal hour
Must still live with me.—O you gracious gods!
Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,
And snatch them straight away? The waves received
My queen. A sea-mate's chest coffined her corpse;
In which she silent lies 'midst groves of coral,
Or in a glittering bed of shining shells[2].
The air-fed lamps of heaven, the spouting whale,
And dashing waters that roll o'er her head,
Compose a monument to hide her bones,
Spacious as heaven, and lasting as the frame
Of universal nature."
Marina, Act II. Sc. 1.
When Pericles is informed of the death of his child, the mutability of human affairs rushes upou his mind.
"Once, princes sat, like stars, about my throne,
And veiled their crowns to my supremacy:
Then, like the sun, all paid me reverence
For what I was; and all the grateful loved me
