The Winged Beetle

72 THE SWIMMER FATHER of light ! Through the black seas I swim To thine arising Disk. Seven waves suppress Mine head beneath their arcane bitterness ; Nor on their curling summits shines one dim Foam-flake made lustrous by the light of him To whom I strive. O blank, black wilderness Of iron water ! O this stormy stress Of strength that strains toward thine auroral rim ! Caught up on the wild crest, thine orb I glimpse ; Thrust in the trough, the salt wave chokes and blinds. Shrill shrieks the wind, the voice of myriad imps ; And mine own mockery might match the wind’s Save that—I struggle vainly, that is true ; But—thou art rising, and the sea burns blue !