FLOW, Waters! spread afar my zones of green,
So I with salt baptismal waves may haunt
And bathe the new-sprung continents terrene,
Hearing my freshets and young rivers chaunt.
O white-armed children of mine elder waves,
Behold what golden lands lie in your sight!
Bellow! you molten thunders, in my caves,
You whales, gush forth your fountains of delight!
Dance, merfolk and mad dolphins, dance the Seas,--
My watery palace-halls are deep and wide,
And Earth hath quaffed mine emerald wine whose lees
Shall make her shores teem fertile. O'er my tide,
The ermine of my surges and the flags
And mews lie dense, and pearls sleep in my breast.
The coral burns upon my darkest crags,
And the slow, mountant atoll knows no rest.
My leman fair, the charmed Moon, bends low
To draw me with her webs of mute desire,
And lo! beyond her magic empires glow
Pale fires of sunrise and red sunset fire!