| |
| WITH whirl sublime, and with what maelstrom force, | |
| The frantic waters strike our plunging bark; | |
| The rage defiant and the thunderings hoarse, | |
| These bring no fears to our devoted ark | |
| That bounds securely to its distant mark. | 5 |
| See how the tortured deep heaps surge on surge! | |
| What howling billows sweep the waters dark! | |
| Stunning the ear with their stentorian dirge, | |
| That loudens as they lash the rocks’ resisting verge. | |
| |
| To what shall we compare thee,—thing of dread! | 10 |
| What grand resistless Terror, armed, art thou? | |
| Strife’s awful champion, autocrat and head,— | |
| The mighty Wrestler to whom all must bow | |
| That feel thine iron grasp. O stern of brow | |
| As Lucifer amid his cowering crew! | 15 |
| How like a scourge, a mad Attila, now, | |
| He charges with his Hun-like retinue, | |
| The flying hosts of waves to vanquish and subdue! | |
| |
| The Hounds of Peril guard this fearful spot; | |
| And yet we dare to tempt the narrow way, | 20 |
| Cutting a passage through the Gordian Knot | |
| Of reefs and breakers, as the vast array | |
| Here bursts in dazzling drifts of diamond spray, | |
| Here bids defiance to all human skill; | |
| Lifting up vast, herculean busts of gray, | 25 |
| As if to awe the mind or shake the will, | |
| Pursuing us like fates adown the tumbling hill. | |
| |
| O awful Shape! that haunts the dread abysm; | |
| That hold’st thy Reign of Terror evermore; | |
| What grave offence, what unforgiven schism, | 30 |
| Consigned thee hither from the Stygian shore? | |
| Why troublest thou the waters with thy roar? | |
| No angel footstep, thine, of rest and peace, | |
| But some lost soul’s for whom no open door | |
| Leadeth to where thy spirit-toils shall cease, | 35 |
| With no commissioned arm stretched forth for thy release. * * * * * | |
| And we have passed the terrible Lachine, | |
| Have felt a fearless tremor thrill the soul, | |
| As the huge waves upreared their crests of green, | |
| Holding our feathery bark in their control, | 40 |
| As a strong eagle holds an oriole. | |
| The brain grows dizzy with the whirl and hiss | |
| Of the fast-crowding billows as they roll | |
| Like struggling demons to the vexed abyss, | |
| Lashing the tortured crags with wild demoniac bliss. | 45 |
| |
