Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/192

188 'Twas o'er. A lurid lightning flash lit up the sea and sky Around and o'er the fated ship; then rose a wailing cry From every heart within her, of keen anguish and despair; But mercy was for them no more,—it died away in air.

Once more the lurid light gleamed out,—the ship was still at rest, The crew were standing at their posts; with arms across his breast Still stood the captain on the poop, but bent and crouching now He bowed beneath that fiat dread, and o'er his swarthy brow Swept lines of anguish, as if he a thousand years of pain Had lived and suffered. Then across the heaving, angry main