| |
| ALONG the shore the slimy brine-pits yawn, | |
| Covered with thick green scum; the billows rise, | |
| And fill them to the brim with clouded foam, | |
| And then subside, and leave the scum again. | |
| The ribbed sand is full of hollow gulfs, | 5 |
| Where monsters from the waters come and lie. | |
| Great serpents bask at noon along the rocks, | |
| To me no terror; coil on coil they roll | |
| Back to their holes before my flying feet. | |
| The Dragon of the Sea, my mother’s god, | 10 |
| Enormous Setebos, comes here to sleep; | |
| Him I molest not; when he flaps his wing | |
| A whirlwind rises, when he swims the deep | |
| It threatens to engulf the trembling isle. | |
| Sometimes when winds do blow, and clouds are dark, | 15 |
| I seek the blasted wood whose barkless trunks | |
| Are bleached with summer suns; the creaking trees | |
| Stoop down to me, and swing me right and left | |
| Through crashing limbs, but not a jot care I. | |
| The thunder breaks above, and in their lairs | 20 |
| The panthers roar; from out the stormy clouds | |
| Whose hearts are fire, sharp lightnings rain around | |
| And split the oaks; not faster lizards run | |
| Before the snake up the slant trunks than I, | |
| Not faster down, sliding with hands and feet. | 25 |
| I stamp upon the ground, and adders rouse, | |
| Sharp-eyed, with poisonous fangs; beneath the leaves | |
| They couch, or under rocks, and roots of trees | |
| Felled by the winds; through briery under-growth | |
| They slide with hissing tongues, beneath my feet | 30 |
| To writhe, or in my fingers squeezed to death. | |
| There is a wild and solitary pine, | |
| Deep in the meadows; all the island birds | |
| From far and near fly there, and learn new songs. | |
| Something imprisoned in its wrinkled bark | 35 |
| Wails for its freedom; when the bigger light | |
| Burns in mid-heaven, and dew elsewhere is dried, | |
| There it still falls; the quivering leaves are tongues, | |
| And load the air with syllables of woe. | |
| One day I thrust my spear within a cleft | 40 |
| No wider than its point, and something shrieked, | |
| And falling cones did pelt me sharp as hail: | |
| I picked the seeds that grew between their plates, | |
| And strung them round my neck with sea-mew eggs. | |
| Hard by are swamps and marshes, reedy fens | 45 |
| Knee-deep in water; monsters wade therein | |
| Thick-set with plated scales; sometimes in troops | |
| They crawl on slippery banks; sometimes they lash | |
| The sluggish waves among themselves at war. | |
| Often I heave great rocks from off the crags, | 50 |
| And crush their bones; often I push my spear | |
| Deep in their drowsy eyes, at which they howl | |
| And chase me inland; then I mount their humps | |
| And prick them back again, unwieldy, slow. | |
| At night the wolves are howling round the place, | 55 |
| And bats sail there athwart the silver light, | |
| Flapping their wings; by day in hollow trees | |
| They hide, and slink into the gloom of dens. | |
| We live, my mother Sycorax and I, | |
| In caves with bloated toads and crested snakes. | 60 |
| She can make charms, and philters, and brew storms, | |
| And call the great Sea Dragon from his deeps. | |
| Nothing of this know I, nor care to know. | |
| Give me the milk of goats in gourds or shells, | |
| The flesh of birds and fish, berries and fruit, | 65 |
| Nor want I more, save all day long to lie, | |
| And hear, as now, the voices of the sea. | |
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