Of ocean, which like limpid water lay.

Who, then, in that ambrosial latitude

Out of the light evolved the moving blooms,

Who, then, evolved the sea-blooms from the clouds

Diffusing balm in that Pacific calm?

C’était mon enfant, mon bijou, mon âme.

The sea-clouds whitened far below the calm

And moved, as blooms move, in the swimming green

And in its watery radiance, while the hue

Of heaven in an antique reflection rolled

Round those flotillas. And sometimes the sea

Poured brilliant iris on the glistening blue.

II

In that November off Tehuantepec

The slopping of the sea grew still one night.

At breakfast jelly yellow streaked the deck

And made one think of chop-house chocolate

And sham umbrellas. And a sham-like green

Capped summer-seeming on the tense machine

Of ocean, which in sinister flatness lay.

Who, then, beheld the rising of the clouds

That strode submerged in that malevolent sheen,

Who saw the mortal massives of the blooms

Of water moving on the water-floor?

C’était mon frère du ciel, ma vie, mon or.

The gongs rang loudly as the windy booms

Hoo-hooed it in the darkened ocean-blooms.

The gongs grew still. And then blue heaven spread

Its crystalline pendentives on the sea

And the macabre of the water-glooms

In an enormous undulation fled.

III

In that November off Tehuantepec,

The slopping of the sea grew still one night

And a pale silver patterned on the deck

And made one think of porcelain chocolate

And pied umbrellas. An uncertain green,

Piano-polished, held the tranced machine

Of ocean, as a prelude holds and holds.

Who, seeing silver petals of white blooms

Unfolding in the water, feeling sure

Of the milk within the saltiest spurge, heard, then,

The sea unfolding in the sunken clouds?

Oh! C’était mon extase et mon amour.

So deeply sunken were they that the shrouds,

The shrouding shadows, made the petals black

Until the rolling heaven made them blue,

A blue beyond the rainy hyacinth,

And smiting the crevasses of the leaves

Deluged the ocean with a sapphire blue.

IV

In that November off Tehuantepec

The night-long slopping of the sea grew still.

A mallow morning dozed upon the deck

And made one think of musky chocolate

And frail umbrellas. A too-fluent green

Suggested malice in the dry machine

Of ocean, pondering dank stratagem.

Who then beheld the figures of the clouds

Like blooms secluded in the thick marine?

Like blooms? Like damasks that were shaken off

From the loosed girdles in the spangling must.

C’était ma foi, la nonchalance divine.

The nakedness would rise and suddenly turn

Salt masks of beard and mouths of bellowing,

Would—But more suddenly the heaven rolled

Its bluest sea-clouds in the thinking green,

And the nakedness became the broadest blooms,

Mile-mallows that a mallow sun cajoled.

V

In that November off Tehuantepec

Night stilled the slopping of the sea. The day

Came, bowing and voluble, upon the deck,

Good clown.… One thought of Chinese chocolate

And large umbrellas. And a motley green