Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79. | | | | Miscellaneous: Seas of the Tropics | | Typhon and Ecnephia | | James Thomson (1834–1882) |
| | (From The Seasons: Summer)
IN the dread ocean, undulating wide, | |
| Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe, | |
| The circling Typhon, whirled from point to point, | |
| Exhausting all the rage of all the sky, | |
| And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens, | 5 |
| Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck | |
| Compressed, the mighty tempest brooding dwells. | |
| Of no regard, save to the skilful eye, | |
| Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs | |
| Aloft, or on the promontory’s brow | 10 |
| Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm, | |
| A fluttering gale, the demon sends before, | |
| To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once, | |
| Precipitant, descends a mingled mass | |
| Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods. | 15 |
| In wild amazement fixed the sailor stands. | |
| Art is too slow. By rapid fate oppressed, | |
| His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide, | |
| Hid in the bosom of the black abyss. | | | | |
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