Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/171

As the bold sons of earth, on the green breast of Ocean
    Beneath the white sail glided gloriously by.

But slowly the seasons their circles would measure
    While each from the stores of her ecstacy stole,
Till she mourn'd for the bowers of her infantine pleasure
    And wept for her sisters in sadness of soul.

Now,—dark was the desolate face of the Ocean
    And frightful the surge of the hollow-voiced main,—
And she learn'd, as she shrank from the billows commotion
    That to rove from the sphere of our duty, is pain.

Her isle seem'd a prison,—her fountain a bubble,—
    And sick'ning the view of the azure-arch'd skies,
She breathed in the ear of each dolphin her trouble,
    And freighted the nautilus' shell with her sighs.

At the news of her anguish, old Neptune relented,
    As parents are wont, even when anger is just,
And he said,—"if Sabrina her choice has repented
    The halls of her father are free as at first."

He lifted his trident, and wondering Nature
    Released the slight isle from her motherly sway,
It leap'd like Strombolo,—and fumed like the crater
    Where Ætna with splendor eclipses the day.

It plunged,—and the maiden in fear and in sorrow
    Shriek'd loud as she breathed its bituminous air,
The gases sulphuric detected with horror
    And pour'd to each god of the waters, her prayer.