Night grows on the heaving ocean
With its ominous white foam flakes,
And the dizzy eternal motion
Where the crest of the wave line breaks,
With surge and swirl on the shingle
Blown on by the keen sea wind,
Surf waves that recoil and mingle
With the hurrying surf behind.
Low over the sea line yonder
The gathering cloud-ranks form,
With a gleam of the sunset under
The fringe of the boding storm.
Along the dim cliffs hollows
The voice of the water moans,
Where the wave as it follows follows
Tears on at the yielding stones.
The last day gleam departed,
Wild gusts of a storm blast came,
And out of the cloud gloom darted
The flash of the lightning flame,
And the pale, pale sea grew haggard
A moment under the flash,
And the line of the dark rocks staggered
And reeled from the thunder-crash:
Long loudly sullenly pealing
It died in the cliffs afar,—
And I saw that a woman was kneeling
At the cross by the harbour bar.