II.

Down on the shore, on the stormy shore!

Beset by a growling sea,

Whose mad waves leap on the rocky steep

Like wolves up a traveller's tree:

Where the foam flies wide, and an angry blast

Blows the curlew off, with a screech;

Where the brown sea-wrack, torn up by the roots,

Is flung out of fishes' reach;

And the tall ship rolls on the hidden shoals,

And scatters her planks on the beach;

Where slate and straw through the village spin,

And a cottage fronts the fiercest din

With a sailor's wife sitting sad within,

Hearkening the wind and the water's roar,

Till at last her tears begin.