Page:Moyarra- An Australian Legend in Two Cantos, 1891.djvu/40

His bark with undulating motion
In joyous mask beguiled the task
Which bore him to the restless ocean;
Where, shuddering at the billows' roar
Vainly he seeks the varied shore.
His faithful spirit from his sight
Fades, wrapt in shades of dubious night:
He asks in vain the heaven o'erarched,
A sulphurous glare its hues hath parched;
And vapours dim are gathering fast:
The cloud-winged thunderstorm unfurls
Its gloomy pinions to the blast;
Each lurid mass at random hurls
The lightning's intermittent light
Whose ghastly vision quails the sight.
His bark reels through the trackless foam
Staggering beneath the wild waves' shock:
Is there no hope to avert his doom?
No way to shun th' impending stroke?
The vengeful demon of the storm
Seemed now endowed with palpable form:
Like an eagle he swooped from his airy height;
The blood of his victim ran cold at the sight:
He shrunk from the breath of the sable plume