Chapter V

On, on, like midnight visions, we passed,
The storm above, and the surge below,
And shrieking forms swept by on the blast,
Like demons speeding on errands of woe.
My spirit sank, for aloft in the cloud,
A Star-set Flag on the whirlwind flew,
And I knew that the billow must be the shroud
Of the noble ship and her gallant crew.
Her side was striped with a belt of white,
And a dozen guns from each battery frowned,
But the lightning came in a sheet of flame,[B]
And the towering sails in its folds were wound.
Vain, vain was the shout, that in battle rout,
Had rung as a knell in the ear of the foe,
For the bursting deck was heaved from the wreck,
And the sky was bathed in the awful glow!
The ocean shook to its oozy bed,
As the swelling sound to the canopy went,
And the splintered fires like meteors shed
Their light o'er the tossing element.
A moment they gleamed, then sank in the foam,
And darkness swept over the gorgeous glare--
They lighted the mariners down to their home,
And left them all sleeping in stillness there!