Alcyone, his daughter, had grown up in her father's house, and watching far to sea had seen the damage wrought by the winds when in bad temper-not that she failed to notice them when calm-she often observed sailboats gliding under the influence of the gentler kinds of winds outside the rocky ring that surrounded the island; but the storms were more spectacular and more devastating than their lamb-like counterparts. She had seen pretty ships spun willy-nilly onto the sharp rocks and smashed to bits, and since life-preservers had not yet been invented, there were only floating timbers for the sailors to grasp, and the chance of seizing one of these was dim. Many a good hand gasped out his life in the over-topping surf, and pulled below, visited the star-strewn sea bottom once and forever, since there was no Red-Cross in those days to teach people to swim. People did not yet realize that by stretching themselves along the sea-surface, inflating their lungs and flailing their arms and legs sequentially, they could keep afloat and reach the distant beach. Nobody bothered to learn-though most people lived on islands, and why they didn't is a mystery. Evidentally, between storms the weather was so good it wasn't necessary, and during the storms unavailing, so high were the waves and so sharp the rocks. Only a merman (or mer-maiden) could navigate them, and no-one land-born was that.
So, she worried...
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem