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Chipped by the beam a nursling of the day,
But hatched for Ocean by the fostering ray:
The rest was one bleak precipice, as e'er
Gave mariners a shelter and despair,

A spot to make the saved regret the deck
Which late went down, and envy the lost wreck.
Such was the stern asylum Neuha chose
To shield her lover from his following foes;
But all its secret was not told; she knew
In this a treasure hidden from the view.

III.

Ere the canoes divided, near the spot,

She would take

The men that manned what held her Torquil's lot,
By her command removed, to strengthen more
The skiff which wafted Christian from the shore.
This he would have opposed; but with a smile
She pointed calmly to the craggy isle,
And bade him " speed and prosper."
The rest upon herself for Torquil's sake.
They parted with this added aid; afar
The proa darted like a shooting star,
And gained on the pursuers, who now steered
Right on the rock which she and Torquil neared.
They pulled; her arm, though delicate, was free
And firm as ever grappled with the sea,

And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier strength,
The prow now almost lay within its length
Of the crag's steep, inexorable face,

With nought but soundless waters for its base;
Within an hundred boats' length was the foe,
And now what refuge but their frail canoe?
This Torquil asked with half upbraiding eye,
Which said" Has Neuha brought me here to die?

Is this a place of safety, or a grave,

And yon huge rock the tombstone of the wave?”

IV.

They rested on their paddles, and uprose
Neuha, and pointing to the approaching foes,
Cried, "Torquil, follow me, and fearless follow!"
Then plunged at once into the ocean's hollow.
There was no time to pause-the foes were near-
Chains in his eye and menace in his ear;
With vigour they pulled on, and as they came,
Hailed him to yield, and by his forfeit name.
Headlong he leapt to him the swimmer's skill
Was native, and now all his hope from ill;
But how or where? He dived, and rose no more;
The boat's crew looked amazed o'er sea and shore.
There was no landing on that precipice,
Steep, harsh, and slippery as a berg of ice.
They watched awhile to see him float again,
But not a trace rebubbled from the main;
The wave rolled on, no ripple on its face,
Since their first plunge recall'd a single trace;
The little whirl which eddied, and slight foam,
That whitened o'er what seemed their latest home,
White as a sepulchre above the pair

Who left no marble (mournful as an heir)
The quiet proa wavering o'er the tide
Was all that told of Torquil and his bride:
And but for this alone the whole might seem

The vanished phantom of a seaman's dream.

They paused and searched in vain, then pulled away, Even superstition now forbade their stay.

Some said he had not plunged into the wave,

But vanished like a corpse-light from a grave;

Others, that something supernatural

Glared in his figure, more than mortal tall;
While all agreed, that in his cheek and eye
There was the dead hue of eternity.
Still as their oars receded from the crag,
Round every weed a moment would they lag,
Expectant of some token of their prey;
But no-he had melted from them like the spray.

V.

And where was he, the Pilgrim of the Deep,
Following the Nereid? Had they ceased to weep
For ever? or, received in coral caves,

Wrung life and pity from the softening waves?
Did they with Ocean's hidden sovereigns dwell,
And sound with Mermen the fantastic shell?
Did Neuha with the Mermaids comb her bair
Flowing o'er ocean as it streamed in air?
Or had they perished, and in silence slept
Beneath the gulf wherein they boldly leapt?

VI.

Young Neuha plunged into the deep, and he
Followed: her track beneath her native sea
Was as a native's of the element,

So smoothly, bravely, brilliantly she went,
Leaving a streak of light behind her heel,
Which struck and flashed like an amphibious steel.
Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace

The depths where divers hold the pearl in chase,
Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas,
Pursued her liquid steps with art and ease.
Deep,-deeper for an instant Neuha led

The way then upward soared and as she spread

Her arms, and flung the foam from off her locks,
Laughed, and the sound was answer'd by the rocks,
They had gained a central realm of earth again,
But looked for tree, and field, and sky, in vain.
Around she pointed to a spacious cave,
Whose only portal was the keyless wave*
(A hollow archway by the sun unseen,
Save through the billows glassy veil of green,
In some transparent ocean holiday,
When all the finny people are at play)

Wiped with her hair the brine from Torquil's eyes,
And clapped her hands with joy at his surprise;
Led him to where the rock appeared to jut
And form a something like a Triton's hut;
For all was darkness for a space, till day
Through clefts above let in a sobered ray;
As in some old cathedral's glimmering aisle
The dusty monuments from light recoil,
Thus sadly in their refuge submarine

The vault drew half her shadow from the scene.

VII.

Forth from her bosom the young savage drew
A pine torch strongly girded with gnatoo;
A plaintain leaf o'er all, the more to keep
Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep.
This mantle kept it dry; then from a nook
Of the same plaintain leaf, a flint she took,
A few shrunk withered twigs, and from the blade
Of Torquil's knife struck fire, and thus arrayed
The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high,

*Of this cave (which is no fiction) the original will be found in the 9th chapter of" Mariner's account of the Tonga Islands." I have taken the poetical liberty to transplant it to Toobonai, the last island where any distinct account is left of Christian and his comrades.

And showed a self-born Gothic canopy;
The arch upreared by nature's architect,

The architrave some earthquake might erect;
The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurled,
When the Poles crashed and Water was the World;
Or hardened from some earth-absorbing fire
While yet the globe reeked from its funeral pyre;
The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,*

Were there, all scooped by Darkness from her Cave.
There, with a little tinge of Phantasy,
Fantastic faces moped and mowed on high,
And then a mitre or a shrine would fix
The eye upon its seeming crucifix.
Thus Nature played with the Stalactites,
And built herself a chapel of the Seas.

VIII.

And Neuha took her Torquil by the hand,
And waved along the vault her kindled brand,
And led him into each recess, and showed
The secret places of their new abode.
Nor these alone, for all had been prepared
Before, to soothe the lover's lot she shared;
The mat for rest; for dress the fresh gnatoo,
And sandal oil to fence against the dew;
For food the cocoa nut, the yam, the bread
Born of the fruit; for board the plantain spread
With its broad leaf, or turtle shell which bore
A banquet in the flesh it covered o'er;

This may seem too minute for the general outline (in Mariner's Account) from which it is taken. But few men have travelled without seeing something of the kind-on land, that is. Without adverting to Ellora, in Mungo Park's last journal (if my memory do not err; for there are eight years since I read the book) he mentions having met with a rock or mountain so exactly resembling a Gothic cathedral, that only minute inspections could convince him that it was a work of nature.

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