Page:Astrophel and other poems (IA astrophelotherpo00swiniala).pdf/71

 The sun that smote and kissed the dark to death Spake, smiled, and strove, like song's triumphant breath; The soundless cloud whose thunderous heart was dumb Swelled, lowered, and shrank to feel its conqueror come. Yet high from heaven its empire vast and vain Frowned, and renounced not night's reluctant reign. The serpentine swift sounds and shapes wherein The stainless sea mocks earth and death and sin, Crawls dark as craft, or flashes keen as hate, Subdued and insubmissive, strong like fate And weak like man, bore wrathful witness yet That storms and sins are more than suns that set; That evil everlasting, girt for strife Eternal, wars with hope as death with life. The dark sharp shifting wind that bade the waves Falter, lose heart, bow down like foes made slaves, And waxed within more bitter as they bowed, Baffling the sea, swallowing the sun with cloud, Devouring fast as fire on earth devours And hungering hard as frost that feeds on flowers,