| |
| AND hark, my love! The sea-breeze moans | |
| Through yon reft house! O’er rolling stones | |
| In bold ambitious sweep, | |
| The onward-surging tides supply | |
| The silence of the cloudless sky | 5 |
| With mimic thunders deep. | |
| |
| Dark reddening from the channelled Isle | |
| (Where stands one solitary pile | |
| Unslated by the blast), | |
| The watchfire, like a sullen star, | 10 |
| Twinkles to many a dozing tar | |
| Rude cradled on the mast. | |
| |
| Even there—beneath that lighthouse tower— | |
| In the tumultuous evil hour, | |
| Ere peace with Sara came, | 15 |
| Time was, I should have thought it sweet | |
| To count the echoings of my feet | |
| And watch the storm-vexed flame. | |
| |
| And there in black soul-jaundiced fit, | |
| A sad gloom-pampered man to sit, | 20 |
| And listen to the roar: | |
| When mountain surges bellowing deep | |
| With an uncouth monster leap | |
| Plunged foaming on the shore. | |
| |
| Then by the lightning’s blaze to mark | 25 |
| Some toiling tempest-shattered bark; | |
| Her vain distress-guns hear; | |
| And when a second sheet of light | |
| Flashed o’er the blackness of the night,— | |
| To see no vessel there! * * * * * | 30 |
| |
