  The fierce sea-sunset over the world Springs like a wounded spirit, The waves all day have hissed and hurled Their fangs and the spray has swept and swirled, And ships in the gray gale's lair have furled Their sails—well may they fear it! The night will be but a monstrous seethe Of terrors elemental. The clouds will wrap in a ghastly wreath Of gloom the winds that in them breathe, And all that lives in the sea beneath By fear shall be made gentle; And sink down, down to the nether deeps, Below the foam and fretting. Alway and the slow sand coldly creeps Over the lone wreck, which Death keeps To guard him 'gainst forgetting. And there in the ominous vast calm They'll harbour, like enchanted Chill shapes he has strangely conjured from The silence of his masterdom; There float till again they feel the qualm Of hunger thro them panted. And then once more far up will they spring, To drift and sport and plunder, Shark, eel and whale and devil-thing, With tooth to rend and tail to sting. To the sea, O God, does horror cling And haunting past all wonder. |
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