SEE where she stands, on the wet sea-sands, Looking across the water: Wild is the night, but wilder still The face of the fisher's daughter. What does she there, in the lightning's glare, What does she there, I wonder? What dread demon drags her forth In the night and wind and thunder? Is it the ghost that haunts this coast?-- The cruel waves mount higher, And the beacon pierces the stormy dark With its javelin of fire. Beyond the light of the beacon bright A merchantman is tacking; The hoarse wind whistling through the shrouds, And the brittle topmasts cracking. The sea it moans over dead men's bones, The sea it foams in anger; The curlews swoop through the resonant air With a warning cry of danger. The star-fish clings to the sea-weed's rings In a vague, dumb sense of peril; And the spray, with its phantom-fingers, grasps At the mullein dry and sterile. O, who is she that stands by the sea, In the lightning's glare, undaunted?-- Seems this now like the coast of hell By one white spirit haunted! The night drags by; and the breakers die Along the ragged ledges; The robin stirs in his drenched nest, The hawthorn blooms on the hedges. In shimmering lines, through the dripping pines, The stealthy morn advances; And the heavy sea-fog straggles back Before those bristling lances. Still she stands on the wet sea-sands; The morning breaks above her, And the corpse of a sailor gleams on the rocks-- What if it were her lover? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOLD-OF-OPHIR ROSES by GRACE ATHERTON DENNEN MADRIGAL: 1 by WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN RELIGIO LAICI; OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH by JOHN DRYDEN THE BURNING BABE by ROBERT SOUTHWELL TANGLED TRAILS by GLADYS NAOMI ARNOLD THE WHITE EAGLE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE HER EYES by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON |