Classic Poem

I

" There's a lurid light in the clouds to-night,
In the wind there's a desolate moan;
And the rage of the furious sea is white,
Where it beats on the crags of stone:
Stand here at my side, and look over the tide,
And say if you hear it, — the sullen knell,
Faint, from afar, on the harbor-bar,
The hollow boom of the wrecker's bell.
For I cannot hear — I am cold with fear —
Ah, leave me not alone!
For I'm old, I'm old, and my blood is cold,
And I fear to be alone."

II

With a shudder I saw his ashen face,
In that wild and fearful night —
For his blazing eyes illumed the place
With a terrible, ghastly light;
And ever his long locks floated out,
As white as the foam of the sea;
And the great waves dashed on the rocks about
With a mad and cruel glee.
But I stood by his side, and looked over the tide,
And faintly I heard that solemn knell,
Faint, from afar, on the harbor-bar,
The hollow boom of the wrecker's bell.

III

" It is but the clang of the signal bell,
That floats through the midnight air:
For many a year in the surging swell
Has the old bell sounded there.
When the storm in his might rides through the night,
And his steeds in thunder neigh,
Then its iron tongue is swayed and swung,
And plunged in the angry spray;
And so when the summer skies are bright,
And the breakers are at play.
But wherefore is it you stay me here,
And why do you shudder and moan,
And what are the nameless shapes you fear
In this desolate place alone?
For your eyes are set in a dreadful glare,
And you shrink at the solemn knell,
As it trembles along the midnight air —
The boom of the wrecker's bell."

IV

" Look up," he cried, " to the awful sky,
Look over the furious sea,
And mark, as the grinning fiends float by,
How they beckon and howl to me!
They are ringing my knell with the baleful bell,
And they gloat on the doom to be.
Ah! give me your hand, and look not back —
We stand not here alone —
And the horrible shapes that throng my track
Would turn your heart to stone.
The spell of the dead is on the hour,
And I yield my soul to its fearful power."

V

A face looks forth in the darkness there,
A young face, sweet with a rosy light:
The sunshine sleeps in her golden hair,
And her violet eyes are softly bright:
On her parted lips there's an innocent smile,
Like a sunbeam kissing a velvet rose;
And her cheeks of pearl grow warm the while,
With a delicate blush that comes and goes.
Ah! purer than morn in its purest hour,
And holy as one from an angel clime,
Was the tender woman, the beautiful flower,
I loved and lost in the far-off time.

VI

One fatal night, in the long ago,
My gallant cruiser passed that bar.
In a bank of clouds the moon hung low,
And the sombre sky showed scarce a star.
The night was calm, but I heard in the swell
A murmur of storm, and, far away,
The muffled toll of the wrecker's bell,
As it floated up from the outer bay.
And a look of hate in the waiting waves
Spoke to my soul of a place of graves.

VII

I watched them there, as I stood at the wheel, —
The happy lover, the radiant bride, —
And the wasting fever of frantic pain
And jealous hatred burnt my brain;
And I felt what only demons feel,
For the man who walked by that woman's side. ...
Nothing they thought of danger then,
Or the schemes and crimes of wicked men.
Lost in a wordless dream of bliss,
And consecrate with marriage kiss,
What could those innocent creatures know
Of the burning hate, the maddening woe,
And the deadly purpose of blind despair,
In the heart of the fiend beside them there

VIII

An hour had passed — he stood alone, ...
I thought no creature saw the blow
That felled him senseless as a stone,
Or heard the pitiful, low moan,
His death-sigh, as he sank below
These very waters where they flow
Around that vengeful bell.
But joy, like grief, will vigils keep,
And love hath eyes that never sleep,
And secret tongues that tell.
She came, like some swift bolt of light,
Scarce seen, a meteor of the sight!
One dazzling gleam, one cry so shrill
That sea and sky and this lone hill
Are echoing with its anguish still —
And she had leaped into the night:
And on her murdered lover's breast
In the same wave she sunk to rest.
That moment o'er the sky
Flamed the red wrath of such a storm
As might enwreathe the avenger's form
When howling fiends defy.
No ship could live in the gale that blew,
And mine went down, with all her crew —
I, only, left alive:
Spurned upward out of weltering hell
To that same reef where swings the bell
That, ever since, with fateful spell,
Hath drawn me by its hideous knell,
I breathed, and ceased to strive —
I, whom the lightning will not rend,
Nor waves engulf, nor death befriend,
Nor holy father shrive!"...

IX

There's a lurid light in the clouds to-night,
In the wind there's a desolate moan;
But the waves roll soft on the sand so white,
And break on the crags of stone;
And the sea-gulls scream in their frolic flight,
And all my dream is flown.
But, far away in the twilight gloom,
I still can hear it, the muffled boom, —
And it seems to be ringing a dead man's knell, —
Solemn and slow, of the wrecker's bell.