So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness began
to steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries across
the deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chill
mist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom.
Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped my
oars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, and
screening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would be
moving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fell
asleep.
I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the sound
of voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragrance
unknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw with
eyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green and
still above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight before
me, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stone
house, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushed
upon the cliff by the waterside.
All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, had
descended to dimmer courts.
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