WOE to the weak when the sky is shrouded, And the wind of the salt-way sobs as it dies! Woe to the weak! for a great dejection Droops their spirits and drowns their eyes. Woe to the weak who tire of fetters, Of grim life-fetters that gall and bind! For the Sea tells stories of death made lovely, And a siren sings in the nor'-east wind. It wanders the coast like a tombless spectre, And drips dank dew on the drooping leaf; And the soul grows pensive with dim suggestions Of grey old troubles and ancient grief. 'Tis grave and low, and with woeful plaining Sighs death-notes under a sky of grey; And who hath an ear may hear the voices Of pale men dead on its streaked sea-way. In fading twilights o'er sullen seascapes, A lost, wan wind 'neath a dead grey sky, It swoons to land like a weary swimmer, Sobs and falters and turns to die. Seeking a tomb in dark coast caverns Where wet rust reddens the fretted stone, The wandering sea-thing sinks to silence, Sinks and dies with a last low moan . . . A last low moan, and deadly stillness . . . Then the sudden crash of a league-long sea, And fresh from his den in the white ice region The Wolf of the South is speeding free; Cleaving the air with his chill grey shoulders, Trampling the sea to foam beneath. The Wolf of the South goes howling nor'ard, A mastless hull in his long white teeth. Black swans on high, a far faint phalanx, Wing their way to a northern clime, Sending feathers of sad sound downward, Mournful notes of an evil time ? An evil time, for the black Night chases And darkness swallows the trailing flock; An evil season of wild white weather, And foam and tumult on reef and rock; Of yellow floods on the Northern rivers, And fierce waves swaying from crest to trough, Of creaking schooners wearing seaward, And signals crying ? Stand off! Stand off! Of frothy flakes on the wild waste flying, And anxious faces, and fateful news; Of close-reefed topsails, and battened hatches, And straining engines and racing screws; Of pumice-stone and brown weeds riven, Cast up and flung on the hissing sand; Of squadroned waves and their mighty charging, And the stern repulse of the frowning land; Of whipped white faces faring stormward With smothered words and wrecked replies, Of trees blown down on the windy ridges, And stormy shoutings, and tempest cries; Of eyes that dance to the wild wind's music, Of strange sweet thrills through the calm-sick form, Of Storm throned king on the mad white ocean, Of Storm the Monarch ? all hail to Storm!