Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/235

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"Then saw we all the deep with horror lower,
As the swift squall descended in its power;
The waves drop dead still,—'twas a portent fell;
The bark hang motionless, as by a spell
Entranced; and far away, against the skies,
A mountain of black water seemed to rise,

"And all the heaped-up sea, with vapor crested,
To burst upon our vessel, thus arrested.
God, 'twas an awful hour! One monster wave
Seemed thrusting us into a watery grave,
Fluting to death. Or ever it closed o'er us,
The next upon a dizzy height upbore us.

"The lightning cleft the gloom with blades of fire;
Peal followed peal of thunder, deafening, dire.
It was as if all hell had been unchained
Upon our tiny craft, which groaned and strained
So hunted, and seemed rushing on her wreck,
And smote our foreheads with her heaving deck.

"Now rode we on the shoulders of the main;
Now sank into its inky gulfs again,
Where the seal dwelleth and the mighty shark,
And the sea-peacook; and we seemed to hark
To the sad cry, lifted unceasingly,
By the unresting victims of the sea.