Sea Fables Explained

Front Cover
Clowes, 1883 - Ocean - 122 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 96 - This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main; The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming Lair.
Page 97 - Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Page 60 - The swiftest racer of the azure plain Here fills her sails, and spreads her oars in vain; Fell Scylla rises, in her fury roars, At once six mouths expands, at once six men devours.
Page 96 - Before thee lies revealed, — Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn!
Page 61 - The silent fisher casts the insidious food, With fraudful care he waits the finny prize, And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies : So the foul monster lifts her prey on high, So pant the wretches struggling in the sky : In the wide dungeon she devours her food, And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood.
Page 24 - This morning, one of our companie looking over boord saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up, and by that time shee was come close to the ship's side, looking earnestly on the men : a little after, a sea came and overturned her : from the navill upward, her backe and breasts were like a woman's...
Page 26 - The face and shoulders appeared of human form, and of a reddish colour ; over the shoulders hung long green hair ; the tail resembled that of the seal, but the extremities of the arms he could not see distinctly. The creature continued to make a musical noise while he gazed about two minutes, and on perceiving him it disappeared in an instant.
Page 96 - Sails the unshadowed main; The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies...
Page 96 - Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn ! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
Page 106 - ... and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast up there likewise ; whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth to certaine shells, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour...

Bibliographic information