Alonzo Lewis (1794–1861)

THE LOUD wind roar’d, and fast the rain

Descended from on high,

The angry billows rush’d amain,

And darkness veil’d the sky.

Young Theodore, oppress’d with grief,

And sighing to be free,

Was seated on a rocky cliff

That overlook’d the sea.

And far above the sandy beach

That stretch’d beneath his eye,

The white sea-gull was heard to screech,

While soaring round on high.

His Delia once was fair and gay,

Her lovely soul benign,

But death had snatch’d the maid away,

And left him to repine.

“Ye torrents pour, ye billows dash,

Ye loud winds roar!” he cried;

“And faster still, ye lightnings, flash,

And spread your horrors wide!”

Such sinful words he spake—O Christ!

That such a thing should be!

That youth should turn aside to vice,

And lose its hope in thee!

The waves grew wild, the night more dark,

And louder shriek’d the bird;

While frequent from an unseen bark

The minute-gun was heard.

Reclining on his rocky bed,

He shuts his weary eyes;

Hoarse thunder rumbles o’er his head,

And sheeted lightning flies.

The spirit of the night raved loud;

He waked with stifled breath;

A bolt shot from the impending cloud,

And seal’d his eyes in death.