The in front, the otherworld of the sea reaches 

 Gardens beyond sight to follow the lifted wave against 

 g ea the grey skyline, or is it the grey lip of the 



fallen horizon ? Looking down I can perceive 

 the olive-brown and green seaweed swaying in 

 the slow movement of the tide. Like drifted 

 hair, the long thin filaments of the Mermaid's 

 Locks {Chorda Fihan) sinuously twist, inter- 

 twine, involve, and unfold. It is as though a 

 seawoman rose and fell, idly swam or idly 

 swung this way and that, asleep on the tide : 

 nothing visible of her wave-grey body but 

 only her long fatal hair, that so many a 

 swimmer has had cause to dread, from whose 

 embrace so many a swimmer has never risen. 

 In the rock-set pools the flesh-hued fans of 

 the dulse indolently stir. Wave-undulated 

 over them are fronds of a lovely green weed, 

 delicate, transparent : above these, two phan- 

 tom fish, rock- cod or saithe, float motionless. 



Idly watching, idly dreaming thus, I recall 

 part of a forgotten poem about the woods of 

 the sea, and the finned silent creatures that are 

 its birds : and how there are stags and wolves 

 in these depths, long hounds of the sea, mer- 

 men and merwomen and seal -folk. Others, 

 too, for whom we have no name, we being 

 wave-blind and so unable to discern these 

 comers and goers of the shadow. Also, how 



216 



