Page:Poems Cook.djvu/323

A young child is roving, and soon he espies
 My rich, curling threads as they mount in the spray;
He steps 'mid the green stones, and eagerly cries,
 "Oh, that beautiful Sea-weed, I'll bear it away!"

All earnestly gazing, he stretches to reach,
But a swift-spreading wave has roll'd over the beach;
It hath carried me back from the sun-lighted strand,
And the young child beholds me, far, far from the land.

He runs through the ebb-surf, but vain the endeavour;
I am gone, my fair boy, I am gone, and for ever;
Thou wilt covet full many bright things,—but take heed
They elude not your grasp like the pretty Sea-weed.

 

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Now I am met in my wide career
 By the ice-pile driving fast;
A broad and sail-less boat rides near,
 And a lithe rope runneth past.

Hark, that plunge! 'who cometh here,
 With long and purple trail?
'Tis the Sea King pierced with the jagged spear,—
 The cleaving and furious whale.

He huggeth me tight in his downward flight;
 On his writhing fin I go:
While his blood pours out with torrent spout,
 And he gasps with snorting blow.

Weltering in his ocean halls,
 He dyeth the coral deeper;
And wallows against the weedy walls
 With the lunge of a frantic sleeper.

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