The Night-Storm at Sea

'T is a dreary thing to be
Tossing on the wide, wide sea,
When the sun has set in clouds,
And the wind sighs through the shrouds,
With a voice and with a tone
Like a living creature's moan!

Look! how wildly swells the surge
Round the black horizon's verge!
See the giant billows rise
From the ocean to the skies!
While the sea-bird wheels his flight
O'er their streaming crests of white.

List! the wind is wakening fast!
All the sky is overcast!
Lurid vapours, hurrying, trail
In the pathway of the gale,
As it strikes us with a shock
That might rend the deep-set rock!

Falls the strain'd and shiver'd mast!
'Spars are scatter'd by the blast!
And the sails are split asunder,
As a cloud is rent by thunder;
And the struggling vessel shakes,
As the wild sea o'er her breaks.

Ah! what sudden light is this,
Blazing o'er the dark abyss?
Lo! the full moon rears her form
Mid the cloud-rifts of the storm,
And, athwart the troubled air,
Shines, like hope upon despair!

Every leaping billow gleams
With the lustre of her beams,
And lifts high its fiery plume
Through the midnight's parting- gloom
While its scatter'd flakes of gold
O'er the sinking deck are roll'd.

Father! low on bended knee,
Humbled, weak, we turn to thee!
Spare us, mid the fearful fight
Of the raging winds to-night!
Guide us o'er the threatening wave:
Save us! — thou alone canst save!