The Torch

Through skies blown clear by storm, o'er storm-spent seas,

Day kindled pale with promise of full noon

Of blue unclouded; no night-weary wind

Ruffled the slumberous, heaving deeps to white,

Though round the Farne Isles the waves never sink

In foamless sleep--about the pillared crags

For ever circling with unresting spray.

At dawn's first glimmer, from his island-cell--

Rock-hewn, secure from tempest--Oswald came