All night the moon peered wan and pale
Thro’ rifts in a scudding storm-rent veil
O'er a moving mountainous waste.
All night did the climbers rear and roar
And fall with a crash upon the shore,
League on league of them coming in haste
Till they broke and leapt no more,
Leaping and shouting until they broke
Upon the screaming shore.
And the simple hardy fisherfolk
Kept watch and slept no more,
As the wicked wind raved down the street
With gouts of foam and slings of sleet
And battered at every door.
All night the tiles like chips of straw
Were borne, and the air was filled with the roar
Of the monstrous symphony.
But its music lulled as the morning came
And touched the East with a rosy flame,
And whitened a hard clear sky,
And the tide drew out far far to the sea
Which shouted less tumultuously,
Tho’ its voices were heard for a sign,
As it beat upon the barrier rocks
With the baffled rage of the Equinox
In a spouting misty line.