A SEA CHANGE
Reading edition
Night-long I heard the poignant undertone, The interminable sobbing of the sea; And now that morn breaks dim and dolorously I mark the riotous surges landward blown, Tempestuous and towering, and hurled prone Upon the stark sand reaches; and the glee Of the mad wind, its maniac monody, Mingles with ocean's dithyrambic moan. Not so yestreen, when westward flamed the sun, Flinging athwart the waves a lustrous path, Tinging the sky with colors rich and strange! The black night wrought this mystery of wrath, This mood demonic (reason seems there none), This weird and inexplicable sea change!