Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, STORM IN MID-ATLANTIC, by WILLIAM WATSON


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STORM IN MID-ATLANTIC, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Many have sung of the terrors of storm
Last Line: Storm, the matchless artist, lord of colour and line.
Alternate Author Name(s): Watson, John William
Subject(s): Sea Voyages; Storms


MANY have sung of the terrors of Storm:
I will make me a song of its beauty, its graces of hue and form:
A song of the loveliness gotten of Power,
Born of Rage in her blackest hour,
When never a wave repeats another,
But each is unlike his own twin brother,
Each is himself from base to crown,
Himself alone as he clambers up,
Himself alone as he crashes down; --
When the whole sky drinks of the sea's mad cup,
And the ship is thrilled to her quivering core,
But amidst her pitching, amidst her rolling,
Amidst the clangour and boom and roar,
Is a Spirit of Beauty all-controlling!
For here in the thick of the blinding weather
The great waves gather themselves together,
Shake out their creases, compose their folds,
As if each one knew that an eye beholds.
And look! there rises a shape of wonder,
A moving menace, a mount of gloom,
But the moment ere he breaks asunder
His forehead flames into sudden bloom,
A burning rapture of nameless green,
That never on earth or in heaven was seen,
Never but where the midmost ocean
Greets and embraces the tempest in primal divine emotion.
And down in a vale of the sea, between
Two roaring hills, is a wide smooth space,
Where the foam that blanches the ocean's face
Is woven in likeness of filmiest lace,
Delicate, intricate, fairy-fine,
Wrought by the master of pure design,
Storm, the matchless artist, lord of colour and line.





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