Is smooth as a sheet of polished glass.
Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave,
With snowy arms half swelling out,
While on the glossed and gleamy wave
Their sea-green ringlets loosely float:
They swim around with smile and song;
They press the bark with pearly hand,
And gently urge her course along,
Toward the beach of speckled sand;
And as he lightly leaped to land
They bade adieu with nod and bow,
Then gaily kissed each little hand,
And dropped in the crystal deep below.

A moment stayed the fairy there:
He kissed the beach and breathed a prayer;
Then spread his wings of gilded blue,
And on to the elfin court he flew.
As ever ye saw a bubble rise,
And shine with a thousand changing dyes,
Till, lessening far, through ether driven,
It mingles with the hues of heaven;
As, at the glimpse of morning pale,
The lance-fly spreads his silken sail
And gleams with bleedings soft and bright
Till lost in the shades of fading night;
So rose from earth the lovely Fay,
So vanished far in heaven away!