Page:Poems and ballads, third series (IA poemsballadsthir00swin).pdf/65

 Day upon day upon day confounds them, with measureless mists that swell, With drift of rains everlasting and dense as the fumes of ascending hell. The visions of priest and of prophet beholding his enemies bruised of his rod Beheld but the likeness of this that is fallen on the faithful, the friends of God. Northward, and northward, and northward they stagger and shudder and swerve and flit, Dismantled of masts and of yards, with sails by the fangs of the storm-wind split. But north of the headland whose name is Wrath, by the wrath or the ruth of the sea, They are swept or sustained to the westward, and drive through the rollers aloof to the lee. Some strive yet northward for Iceland, and perish: but some through the storm-hewn straits That sunder the Shetlands and Orkneys are borne of the breath which is God's or fate's: