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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Robert Southey (1774–1843)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

III. The Ship in a Storm

Robert Southey (1774–1843)

O GOD! have mercy in this dreadful hour

On the poor mariner! In comfort here,

Safe sheltered as I am, I almost fear

The blast that rages with resistless power.

What were it now to toss upon the waves,

The maddened waves, and know no succor near;

The howling of the storm alone to hear,

And the wild sea that to the tempest raves;

To gaze amid the horrors of the night,

And only see the billows’ gleaming light;

Then in the dread of death to think of her

Who, as she listens sleepless to the gale,

Puts up a silent prayer, and waxes pale!

O God! have mercy on the mariner!