Soon he gathered the balsam dew From the sorrel leaf and the henbane bud; Over each wound the balm he drew, And with cobweb lint he stanched the blood. The mild west wind was soft and low, It cooled the heat of his burning brow, And he felt new life in his sinews shoot, As he drank the juice of the cal'mus root; And now he treads the fatal shore, As fresh and vigorous as before. XVII. Wrapped in musing stands the sprite: 'Tis the middle wane of night, His task is hard, his way is far, But he must do his errand right Ere dawning mounts her beamy car, And rolls her chariot wheels of light; And vain are the spells of fairy-land, He must work with a human hand. XVIII. He cast a saddened look around, But he felt new joy his bosom swell, When, glittering on the shadowed ground, He saw a purple muscle shell; Thither he ran, and he bent him low, He heaved at the stern and he heaved at the bow, And he pushed her over the yielding sand, Till he came to the verge of the haunted land. She was as lovely a pleasure boat As ever fairy had paddled in, For she glowed with purple paint without, And shone with silvery pearl within; A sculler's notch in the stern he made, An oar he shaped of the bootle blade; Then spung to his seat with a lightsome leap, And launched afar on the calm blue deep. XIX. The imps of the river yell and rave; They had no power above the wave, But they heaved the billow before the prow, And they dashed the surge against her side, And they struck her keel with jerk and blow, Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide. She wimpled about in the pale moonbeam, Like a feather that floats on a wind tossed-stream; And momently athwart her track The quarl upreared his island back, And the fluttering scallop behind would float, And patter the water about the boat; But he bailed her out with his colen-bell, And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread, While on every side like lightening fell The heavy strokes of his bootle-blade. XX. Onward still he held his way, Till he came where the column of moonshine lay, And saw beneath the surface dim The brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim: Around him were the goblin train-- But he sculled with all his might and main, And followed wherever the sturgeon led, Till he saw him upward point his head; Then he dropped his paddle blade, And held his colen goblet up To catch the drop in its crimson cup. XXI. With sweeping tail and quivering fin, Through the wave the sturgeon flew, And, like the heaven-shot javelin, He sprung above the waters blue. Instant as the star-fall light, He plunged him in the deep again, But left an arch of silver bright The rainbow of the moony main. It was a strange and lovely sight To see the puny goblin there; He seemed an angel form of light, With azure wing and sunny hair, Throned on a cloud of purple fair, Circled with blue and edged with white, And sitting at the fall of even Beneath the bow of summer heaven. XXII.