RED SYMPHONY

Over the ink-black cauldron of the sea,

Heavily, on wings of leaden cloud,

Howling the sunset

Races out to assail me.

Long have I voyaged,

Night after night the grey rains swept the sea:

The heaving breakers

Hissed and quivered but held no light.

Now my voyage is ending,

White storm winds have swept bare my soul;

With their harsh laughter,

Their maddening mockery,

Their bayonet-thrusts of despair.

Over the keen, clean-swept zenith

Roll crushingly, huge masses of cloud:

Dull, ponderous, sagging with the burden

Of creaking snow.

They drop flat on the sea,

They hang menacing over me,

They festoon the sun

With swags of crimson light.

They stripe the horizon,

They bar every way with their iron tongues;

They loom weltering over my effort,

They steadfastly close me in.

Meanwhile the sun

With dying force

Wrenches one little crack

In the midst of the sagging masses,

And I steer on to it.

Like a crimson lake

The light overflows and touches the bulging surfaces

With carmine, with scarlet,

With orange, with vermillion,

With brick red, with bluish purple,

With maroon, with rose, with russet,

With savage green, with snowy blue,

With grey, with ebony, with gold.

It is the storm of the evening

That races out shrieking

To assail me,

And I hail it.