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(Excerpt)
THE WIND KING from the North came down, | |
| Nor stopped by river, mount, or town; | |
| But, like a boisterous god at play, | |
| Resistless bounding on his way, | |
| He shook the lake and tore the wood, | 5 |
| And flapped his wings in merry mood, | |
| Nor furled them, till he spied afar | |
| The white caps flash on Hatteras bar, | |
| Where fierce Atlantic landward bowls | |
| O’er treacherous sands and hidden shoals. | 10 |
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| He paused, then wreathed his horn of cloud, | |
| And blew defiance long and loud: | |
| “Come up! come up, thou torrid god, | |
| That rul’st the Southern sea! | |
| Ho! lightning-eyed and thunder-shod, | 15 |
| Come wrestle here with me! | |
| As tossest thou the tangled cane, | |
| I ’ll hurl thee o’er the boiling main! * * * * * | |
| “Come up! come up, thou torrid god, | |
| Thou lightning-eyed and thunder-shod, | 20 |
| And wrestle here with me!” | |
| ’T was heard and answered: “Lo! I come | |
| From azure Carribee, | |
| To drive thee cowering to thy home, | |
| And melt its walls of frozen foam.” | 25 |
| From every isle and mountain dell, | |
| From plains of pathless chaparral, | |
| From tide-built bars, where sea-birds dwell, | |
| He drew his lurid legions forth, | |
| And sprang to meet the white-plumed North. | 30 |
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| Can mortal tongue in song convey | |
| The fury of that fearful fray? | |
| How ships were splintered at a blow, | |
| Sails shivered into shreds of snow, | |
| And seamen hurled to death below! | 35 |
| Two gods commingling, bolt and blast, | |
| The huge waves on each other cast, | |
| And bellowed o’er the raging waste; | |
| Then sped, like harnessed steeds, afar, | |
| That drag a shattered battle-car | 40 |
| Amid the midnight din of war! | |
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| False Hatteras! when the cyclone came, | |
| Thy waves leapt up with hoarse acclaim | |
| And ran and wrecked yon argosy! | |
| Fore’er nine sunk! that lone hulk stands | 45 |
| Embedded in thy yellow sands,— | |
| An hundred hearts in death there stilled, | |
| And yet its ribs, with corpses filled, | |
| Are now caressed by thee! * * * * * | |
| Yon lipless skull shall speak for me, | 50 |
| “This is the Golgotha of the sea! | |
| And its keen hunger is the same | |
| In winter’s frost or summer’s flame! | |
| When life was young, adventure sweet, | |
| I came with Walter Raleigh’s fleet, | 55 |
| But here my scattered bones have lain | |
| And bleached for ages by the main! | |
| Though lonely once, strange folk have come, | |
| Till peopled is my barren home. | |
| Enough are here. Oh, heed the cry, | 60 |
| Ye white-winged strangers sailing by! | |
| The bark that lingers on this wave | |
| Will find its smiling but a grave! | |
| Then, tardy mariner, turn and flee, | |
| A myriad wrecks are on thy lea! | 65 |
| With swelling sail and sloping mast, | |
| Accept kind Heaven’s propitious blast! | |
| O ship, sail on! O ship, sail fast, | |
| Till, Golgotha’s quicksands being past, | |
| Thou gain’st the open sea at last!” | 70 |
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