Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79.

Miscellaneous: Seas of the Tropics

Typhon and Ecnephia

By James Thomson (1834–1882)

(From The Seasons: Summer)

IN the dread ocean, undulating wide,

Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,

The circling Typhon, whirled from point to point,

Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,

And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens,

Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck

Compressed, the mighty tempest brooding dwells.

Of no regard, save to the skilful eye,

Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs

Aloft, or on the promontory’s brow

Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,

A fluttering gale, the demon sends before,

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,

Precipitant, descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.

In wild amazement fixed the sailor stands.

Art is too slow. By rapid fate oppressed,

His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide,

Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.