THE twilight is sad and cloudy, The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sea-birds Flash the white caps of the sea. Close, close it is pressed to the window, Were looking into the darkness, To see some form arise. And a woman's waving shadow Now rising to the ceiling, Now bowing and bending low. What tale do the roaring ocean, And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell to that little child? And why do the roaring ocean, And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the colour from her cheek? SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and fast blew the blast, And the east-wind was his breath. His lordly ships of ice Glistened in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide, Flashing crystal streamlets run. His sails of white sea-mist Dripped with silver rain; But where he passed there were cast Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ; Three days or more seaward he bore, Alas! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night; And never more, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 53 He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand; "Do not fear! Heaven is as near," He said, "by water as by land!" In the first watch of the night, Without a signal's sound, Out of the sea, mysteriously, The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds ; Every mast, as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold! As of a rock was the shock; Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main; Yet there seems no change of place. Southward, for ever southward, They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream Sinking, vanish all away. THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea, And on its outer point, some miles away, The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry, A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. Even at this distance I can see the tides, Upheaving, break unheard along its base, A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides In the white lip and tremour of the face. |