IX

All night the moon peered wan and pale

Thro’ rifts in a scudding storm-rent veil

O'er a moving mountainous waste.

All night did the climbers rear and roar

And fall with a crash upon the shore,

League on league of them coming in haste

Till they broke and leapt no more,

Leaping and shouting until they broke

Upon the screaming shore.

And the simple hardy fisherfolk

Kept watch and slept no more,

As the wicked wind raved down the street

With gouts of foam and slings of sleet

And battered at every door.

All night the tiles like chips of straw

Were borne, and the air was filled with the roar

Of the monstrous symphony.

But its music lulled as the morning came

And touched the East with a rosy flame,

And whitened a hard clear sky,

And the tide drew out far far to the sea

Which shouted less tumultuously,

Tho’ its voices were heard for a sign,

As it beat upon the barrier rocks

With the baffled rage of the Equinox

In a spouting misty line.