Poets' Corner - Paul Laurence Dunbar - The Rising of the Storm
The Rising of the Storm
- THE lake's dark breast
- Is all unrest,
- It heaves with a sob and a sigh.
- Like a tremulous bird,
- From its slumber stirred,
- The moon is a-tilt in the sky.
- From the silent deep
- The waters sweep,
- But faint on the cold white stones,
- And the wavelets fly
- With a plaintive cry
- O'er the old earth's bare, bleak bones.
- And the spray upsprings
- On its ghost-white wings,
- And tosses a kiss at the stars;
- While a water-sprite,
- In sea-pearls dight,
- Hums a sea-hymn's solemn bars.
- Far out in the night,
- On the wavering sight
- I see a dark hull loom;
- And its light on high,
- Like a Cyclops' eye,
- Shines out through the mist and gloom.
- Now the winds well up
- From the earth's deep cup,
- And fall on the sea and shore,
- And against the pier
- The waters rear
- And break with a sullen roar.
- Up comes the gale,
- And the mist-wrought veil
- Gives way to the lightning's glare,
- And the cloud drifts fall,
- A sombre pall,
- O'er water, earth, and air.
- The storm-king flies,
- His whip he plies,
- And bellows down the wind.
- The lightning rash
- With blinding flash
- Comes pricking on behind.
- Rise, waters, rise,
- And taunt the skies
- With your swift-flitting form.
- Sweep, wild winds, sweep,
- And tear the deep
- To atoms in the storm.
- And the waters leapt,
- And the wild winds swept,
- And blew out the moon in the sky,
- And I laughed with glee,
- It was joy to me
- As the storm went raging by!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar