Dread as death-fires that burn on the fear-smitten eye,
When the far-shaking thunder-tramp reels through the sky.
On a fragment that flew from the van of the blast,
Like a leaf on the stream of the hurricane cast,
Now spurned from their bosom, now hid in the abyss
Of black waves that sparkle, crack, thunder, and hiss,
It was thou on my breast through the war of the storm,
Pale, pale as the shroud that shall compass thy form.
There was death on the gale, there was night on the sea,
Where I sat on that wreck with the tempest and thee;