’Twas off the Wash — the sun went down — the sea look’d black and grim,

For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim;

Titanic shades! enormous gloom! — as if the solid night

Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light!

It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye

With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky!

Down went my-helm — close reef’d — the tack held freely in my hand —

With ballast snug — I put about, and scudded for the land.

Loud hiss’d the sea beneath her lee — my little boat flew fast,

But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast.

Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail!

What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail!

What darksome caverns yawn’d before! what jagged steeps behind!

Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind.

Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase,

But where it sank another rose and galloped in its place;

As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against the cloud

A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor’s shroud:—

Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run!

Behold yon fatal billow rise — ten billows heap’d in one!

With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast,

As if the scooping sea contain’d one only wave at last!

Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave;

It seem’d as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to a wave!

Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face —

I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base!

I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine!

Another pulse — and down it rush’d — an avalanche of brine!

Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home;

The waters clos’d — and when I shriek’d, I shriek’d below the foam!

Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed —

For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed.

“Where am I? in the breathing world, or in the world of death?”

With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath;

My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound —

And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seem’d around?

A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft;

But were those beams the very beams that I had seen so oft?

A face, that mock’d the human face, before me watch’d alone;

But were............