As they lashed the grim crags that flung back the hot spray,
Each wave in succession displayed on its crest
Some thousand pale ghosts who were riding abreast;
Till striking the crag they sank down from my sight,
And others rushed in, like to men in a fight;
Oh! wild were the shrieks and the wails that arose
From those as they sank, and from these as they rose;
So piercing and heart-rending was the sad strain,
That it thrilled me with horror—transfixed me with pain!
These words they ground out midst their dire suffocation: