Oracles

THE STORM Written on the North Atlantic Ocean. IN the sorrow of the silence of the sunset, when the world’s heart sinks to sleep, And the waking wind arises from the wedding of the aether and the deep, There are perfumes through the saltness of the even ; there are hints of flowers afar ; And the God goes down lamented by the lonely vesper star. The monsters rise around us as we move in moving mist, Slow whales that swim as musing, and lo ! or ever we wist, Looms northward in the grey, mysterious ice, cathedral high, Clad in transparent clouds of cold, as a ghost in drapery. The solemn dusk descending creeps around us from the East ; Clouded as with the ungainly head of a mysterious beast. Long wisps of darkness (even as fingers) reach and hold The sobbing West toward them, clasp the barred Hesperian gold. 79