Classic Poem

The sky is a sieve that the rough wind shakes;
And far and wide o'er the frozen earth
Flutter and fall the flour-white flakes,
Like ashes strewn on the wintry hearth.

The air is thick with the blinding fall;
The trees are ghosts in the twilight gloom;
Night slowly lowers her mournful pall
O'er the shrouded earth in her sky-domed tomb.

The forests moan to the shivering air,
While the hoarse winds call from the icy rock
That rears its gray front, bleak and bare,
To shatter the ravening waves' wild shock.

Oh, pity the sailor's fate to-night!
For bitter and keen is the north wind's breath;
And the dun storm quenches the beacon light,
Now false to its warning of wreck and death.

As a frighted bird flees the hawk's career,
The lost bark flies o'er the reeling wave:
Their hearts stand still in their breasts for fear,
And their eyes strain out on a gaping grave.

A shivering shock, and a piercing yell!
A rush of waters, a sidelong heel!
The gun's dull boom her last farewell, —
And the waves surge over her, deck and keel!

Oh, pity the sailor's fate to-night!
And pity the homes that wait in vain!
The pitiless sun, in the morrow's light,
Will laugh, as of old, with the waves again.