Page:Poems David.djvu/140

Ha! Ha! we laugh, what mortal one
 Can live beneath its bosom wide?

THIRD AND FOURTH MERMAIDS.

The sea is ours, and who may dare
 To rival this our ocean sway?
What conquering hand our boundless realm
 Shall ever wrest from us away?
Full fathoms 'neath the beauteous sea
 We chant our weird and magic song;
Taming the dolphin fierce and wild,
 Skimming the azure deep along.

CHILD.

Oh! ye wild, enchanting voices,
 Thus wafted by the summer wind;
Drifting on with wild sad burden
 Of mingled joy and pain we find.
Hark! a single voice is rising
 O'er the deep's cool rippling waves;
Now it swells, ah! now 'tis dying,
 Thro' the lone ocean's coral caves.

FIRST MERMAID.

List, list, fair child of gloomy earth,
 To the wonderous dreams we tell;