A Morning Fancy

I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boatUpon the surface of a shoreless seaWhereon no ship nor anything did float,Save only the frail bark supporting me;And that--it was so shadowy--seemed to beAlmost from out the very vapors wroughtOf the great ocean underneath its keel;And all that blue profound appeared as naughtBut thicker sky, translucent to reveal,Miles down, whatever through its spaces glided,Or at the bottom traveled or abided.

Great cities there I saw--of rich and poor,The palace and the hovel; mountains, vales,Forest and field, the desert and the moor,Tombs of the good and wise who'd lived in jails,And seas of denser fluid, white with sailsPushed at by currents moving here and thereAnd sensible to sight above the flatOf that opaquer deep. Ah, strange and fairThe nether world that I was gazing atWith beating heart from that exalted level,And--lest I founder--trembling like the devil!

The cities all were populous: men swarmedIn public places--chattered, laughed and wept;And savages their shining bodies warmedAt fires in primal woods. The wild beast leaptUpon its prey and slew it as it slept.Armies went forth to battle on the plainSo far, far down in that unfathomed deepThe living seemed as silent as the slain,Nor even the widows could be heard to weep.One might have thought their shaking was but laughter;And, truly, most were married shortly after.

Above the wreckage of that silent frayStrange fishes swam in circles, round and round--Black, double-finned; and once a little wayA bubble rose and burst without a soundAnd a man tumbled out upon the ground.Lord! 'twas an eerie thing to drift apaceOn that pellucid sea, beneath black skiesAnd o'er the heads of an undrowning race;And when I woke I said--to her surpriseWho came with chocolate, for me to drink it:"The atmosphere is deeper than you think it."