But the gloom came down around me, and the billows rolled and moaned,
And the little laboring ark with more than human agony groaned.
Shoals and sunken rocks around it,—like a frenzied steed that flies,
Terror burning, like a beacon, in his wide-distended eyes,—
Through this Archipelago of danger such as no one knows,
Save the wanderer in a wilderness, filled with savage hungry foes—
Rode the Argo of my Destiny; for what storm could overwhelm
When God’s holy hand, or else His angel’s, held the fragile helm?
Suddenly from the desperate darkness stole the tender, trembling light
Of a luminous, blushing planet, gleaming gently on my sight.