Charles Strong

ROUSED by the billows’ melancholy dirge,

I woke, as Night her sable banner furled;

What time pale mists, in forms fantastic curled,

Like spectral shapes, come flitting o’er the surge:

Then, looking eastward, o’er the ocean’s verge,

From the near sun I saw red flashes hurled,

As rolls the pageant from the nether world,

And from the waves the golden wheels emerge.

Never of old did more portentous light

Suspend the seaman’s oar, when, like a pyre,

Lemnos appeared at evening, kindling bright;

Rather—when tasked by Jove, in sudden ire,

The god was laboring with his crew all night,

On glowing anvils shaping forkéd fire.