Poems (Scudder)/Angel-fish
ANGEL-FISH
Looking down over the edge of the rocks The dark green, moveless water Seemed solid as jade itself, As the lucent jade of Ceylon.
A flicker—a palpitant curve of light, Elusive, vivid, serene As the wave of the mer-queen's crystal fan.
Slow-gliding, luminous shapes, Spent meteors moving large and dim Past the thin gold disk of the sun-fish, past The rosy ocean-stars that lie Deep down on the cool, dim moss.
Were an opal cloven through the heart Would it show such colors as these—Sheer, limpid green of the peridot, The blue of the moonstone's heart, Rose-purple of almandines.
They are moonlight patterned through The jewelled oriels Of the mer-king's palace beneath Its low-arched, murmurous domes
They are bubbles, pulsing, rounded, sleek The foam-sprite blows on a silvern pipe That would burst with a mortal's breath.
Now they are gone, they have floated down, And the moveless, dark green water Seems solid and still as jade.