One night a tempest tore and tossed and lashed The writhing forest, and deep thunders dashed Sonorous shields together; and anon, Vast in the thunder's pause, the sea would groan Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured From where it soared to maim it with his sword. And Accolon, from where he lay, could see The stormy, wide-wrenched night's immensity Yawn hells of golden ghastliness, and sweep Distending foam, tempestuous, up each steep Of raucous iron. In a fever-fit, He seemed to see, on crags the lightning lit, With tangled hair wild-blown, nude mermaids sit, Singing, and beckoning with foam-white arms Some far ship struggling with the strangling storm's Resistless exultation. And there came One breaker, mountained heavenward, all aflame With glow-worm green, that boomed against the cliff Its bulkéd thunder--and there, pale and stiff, Tumbled in eddies of the howling rocks, His dead, drawn face, with lidless eyes, and locks Oozed close with brine; hurled upward streamingly To streaming mermaids. Then he seemed to see The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who, With hooting, sought him: down the casement drew Wet, shuddering, hag-like fingers; and, at last, Thronged up the turrets with an elfin blast Of baffled mockery, and whirled wildly off, Back to the forest with a maniac scoff.-- Then, far away, hoofs of a hundred gales, As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales, Loosed from the battlemented hills, the loud Herders of tempest drove their herds of cloud, That down the rocking night rolled, with the glare Of swimming eyeballs, and the hurl of hair, Blown, black as rain, from misty-manéd brows, And mouths of bellowing storm; in mad carouse, With whips of wind, rolling and ruining by, Headlong, along the wild and headlong sky.
Once when the lightning made the casement glare, Squares touched to gold, athwart it swept her hair, As if a raven's wing had cut the storm Death-driven seaward. And the vague alarm Of her swift coming filled his soul with hope And wild surmise, that winged beyond the scope Of all his dreams had dreamed of, when he saw 'Twas she, the all-adored. He felt no awe When low she kneeled beside him, beautiful As some lone star and white, and said, "To lull Thy soul to sleep, lo, I have come to thee.-- Didst thou not call me?"--