A black, strange line of breakers, down between
The awful surges, lifting up their manes
Like great sea-lions. Quick and high she strains
Her foaming keel—that solitary ship!
As if, in all her frenzy, she would leap
The cursed barrier: forward, fast and fast—
Back, back she reels; her timbers and her mast
Split in a thousand shivers! A white spring
Of the exulting sea rose bantering
Over her ruin; and the mighty crew