he light and the darkness of storm were as storm
in the heart of Ind.
Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the
far fierce East,
Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar
with death for priest.
The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man
born free
Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and
the wrath of a tropic sea.
As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from
a backward fall,
The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a
sheer cliff's wall.
Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a
breath,
And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the
throat of death.
Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal
joy,
Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's
heart in a boy.
For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and
flamed, sublime
As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the
pulse of time.
The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light
overheard,
The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the
fire of a word,
In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of
the sea,
And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but
when heaven breathed free.
Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out
into light
From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that
were flowerlike and white.
The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that
laugh as they fade
From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in
the light they made.
Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous
tune,
Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast
smile of the moon.
The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams
may behold, and deep
As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the
soul through sleep.
All glories of toi