III. STORM.

Night grows on the heaving ocean

With its ominous white foam flakes,

And the dizzy eternal motion

Where the crest of the wave line breaks,

With surge and swirl on the shingle

Blown on by the keen sea wind,

Surf waves that recoil and mingle

With the hurrying surf behind.

Low over the sea line yonder

The gathering cloud-ranks form,

With a gleam of the sunset under

The fringe of the boding storm.

Along the dim cliffs hollows

The voice of the water moans,

Where the wave as it follows follows

Tears on at the yielding stones.

The last day gleam departed,

Wild gusts of a storm blast came,

And out of the cloud gloom darted

The flash of the lightning flame,

And the pale, pale sea grew haggard

A moment under the flash,

And the line of the dark rocks staggered

And reeled from the thunder-crash:

Long loudly sullenly pealing

It died in the cliffs afar,—

And I saw that a woman was kneeling

At the cross by the harbour bar.