And the long wave comes slowly to the strand, Curving
its crest, and falling silently, There came a stranger anciently to land.
Him the high gods had laden with every gift To make that land a place of peace and joy : Balms for all healings, cures for every rift, Good governance, and faith without alloy.
Alas ! the seas were rough, the night at hand, The man was weary, and was quite alone.
Groping his way along the unwelcoming strand, He laid his storm-tossed head against a stone.
And then he slept. The cold and stealthy tide Crept round him. Hideous and misshapen things Slipped from their caves into the darkness wide, With harsh, foreboding cries and flapping wings.
The wind rose suddenly, morose and loud, It whipt the hollows and the ridged duns, Struck the spent wave, awoke each sleeping cloud, With clap on clap like pealing funeral guns.
Across the rocks, and past that sleeper's head, From cape to cape it roared, from hill to hill, With boomings which might well have roused the.dead ;
Yet the man woke not. He is sleeping still !
E. L.
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