A SEA CHANGE

By Clinton Scollard

Night-long I heard the poignant undertone,

The interminable sobbing of the sea;

And now that morn breaks dim and dolorously

I mark the riotous surges landward blown,

Tempestuous and towering, and hurled prone

Upon the stark sand reaches; and the glee

Of the mad wind, its maniac monody,

Mingles with ocean's dithyrambic moan.

Not so yestreen, when westward flamed the sun,

Flinging athwart the waves a lustrous path,

Tinging the sky with colors rich and strange!

The black night wrought this mystery of wrath,

This mood demonic ( reason seems there none ),

This weird and inexplicable sea change!