NEREIA
Each happy thought before she utter’d it,
So limpid lay the depth of those blue eyes).
Over her head the hair in ripples ran,
Bright in their brownness as the crisped lines
Of polish’d pebbles that the water flings,
In frolic, up and down the sunny beach.
Her forehead, level as the sea far-spread,
Was pure like foam; her steps were light and free,
As the light breeze that springs, at dawn of day
And lustrous even, from the dappled strand
Where earth and ocean meet. Fair, she, and fresh,
Buoyant, deep-hearted, untamed, beautiful;
In all ways as our radiant summer sea,
Beneath whose flickering dance of sun and wave,
Throbs the vast volume of an unknown power;
Loving the ocean as a sister, friend,
A more than mother to her, left motherless.
Only, she long’d, once and again, for him
Who should be sun to her, and she to him
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