CXI.

Yet whether in the sea or vaulted sky,
She knoweth not her lover’s abrupt resort,
So like a shape of dreams he left her eye,
Winking with doubt.  Meanwhile, the churls’ report
Has throng’d the beach with many a curious face,
That peeps upon her from its hiding place.

CXII.

And here a head, and there a brow half seen,
Dodges behind a rock.  Here on his hands
A mariner his crumpled cheeks doth lean
Over a rugged crest.  Another stands,
Holding his harmful arrow at the head,
Still check’d by human caution and strange dread.

CXIII.

One stops his ears,—­another close beholder
Whispers unto the next his grave surmise;
This crouches down,—­and just above his shoulder,
A woman’s pity saddens in her eyes,
And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief,
With all sweet helps of sisterly relief.

CXIV.

And down the sunny beach she paces slowly,
With many doubtful pauses by the way;
Grief hath an influence so hush’d and holy,—­
Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay
Her hand upon that sea-maid’s shoulder white,
Which makes her startle up in wild affright.

CXV.

And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave
That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream;
Anon the sea fills up the watery cave,
And seals her exit with a foamy seam,—­
Leaving those baffled gazers on the beach,
Turning in uncouth wonder each to each.

CXVI.

Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge,
Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam;
Some point to white eruptions of the surge:—­
But she is vanish’d to her shady home,
Under the deep, inscrutable,—­and there
Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair.

CXVII.

Now here, the sighing winds, before unheard,
Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow,
Till all the surface of the deep is stirr’d,
Like to the panting grief it hides below;
And heaven is cover’d with a stormy rack,
Soiling the waters with its inky black.

CXVIII.

The screaming fowl resigns her finny prey,
And labors shoreward with a bending wing,
Rowing against the wind her toilsome way;
Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling
Their dewy frost still further on the stones,
That answer to the wind with hollow groans.

CXIX.

And here and there a fisher’s far-off bark
Flies with the sun’s last glimpse upon its sail,
Like a bright flame amid the waters dark,
Watch’d with the hope and fear of maidens pale;
And anxious mothers that upturn their brows,
Freighting the gusty wind with frequent vows,