THE wild-eyed, savage gull, with bow'd wing, tips
The white, flat surface of the misty sea;
Or, stooping in the wind-trod, hollow wave,
Reels upward straight, hangs quivering, his whole self
Intent, and breaks the surface like a bolt!
This spirit of the mystery of the sea
Sweeps by in silence on the noisy scud,
Or bursts across the borders of the storm,
A flash of horrid white; with beating wing
Struggles in futile, royal wrath against
The armed battalions of a mighty wind,
And beaten, leaps aloft upon the storm
To ride in fury down the conquering gale.
Away, thou symbol of my own gray thoughts!
Whenever from the heaven of weary hopes
The clouds run low in the palely flowing sky;
Whenever from the world of the unachieved
The mists mount up to meet the drooping cloud,
And I between them fail, 't is thou I see,
Thou dreadful emblem of my darker life!
Thou art no child of sunlight, for indeed,
Whether beneath some purple summer eve
Thou weariest thy way into the west,
Or in the winter on the frozen bay
Standest erect, a white, mad, ravened king,
Life-banished by the ice, thou art the same,
Grim, busy with thyself, hard, gloomy, wild.