What voice-like sounds
Off the Trinacrian coast, low, plaintive, sweet,
Blend with the breeze? or is it Fancy’s cheat?
There seem no grounds
For watch or fear: the waves have sunk to sleep
In twilight on the bosom of the deep.
The ship seems half becalmed, and eve surrounds
The crew with dolphins in perpetual leap.
But hark again!
Now here, now there, now all around the ship
The voices sound each from an unseen lip!
Dost hear the strain?
It charms, it lulls, it lures, yet seems to fill
The soul with something ominous of ill,
A strange vague song with which man strives in vain,
Which melts the heart while it benumbs the will.
The weird sounds float
Across the waters from the rocky shore;
The listless crew grow drowsy more and more.
No signs denote
A coming storm; but something slow and strong
Sucks unperceived those spell-bound men along:
Awake, awake! the whirlpool grasps the boat!
It seethes, it roars, it drowns the Sirens’ song!