And we of those grey waters know it well;
We know that he is come, and not in vain;
One must go hence, passing in his pain.
Ayhie! Yoi! But oh! the mood doth change,
The sea doth lift me high on living mountains;
As a mother guards her babe
So the fierce hills round me range,
And a Voice goes on and on in mighty laughter
The joyous call of Strength which doth enguard me.
Ayhie! Yoi! all the splendour of the sea
Doth guard me from the slaughter.
Oh! men in weary lands
Lift up your hearts and hands,
And weep ye are not me,
Child of all the sea,
Out upon the foam among the fountains
And the glory
And the magic of this water world
Where in childhood I was hurled.
Weep, for I am dying in my glory;
And the foam swings round and sings,
And the grey seas chaunt; and the whitened hills are falling;
And I am dying in my glory, dying
Dying, dying, dying.
STORM
At sea; the night,
Born on a thunder-cloud,
Rushed vastly o’er the sky, and hid from sight
The sun, as in a shroud.
And loathsome gloom
Rolled o’er the fretful sea;
Rolled o’er, a curtain dark that hid the doom
That waited there for me.
The tempest’s howl
I heard far o’er the deeps
Ring hollowly, a strange unearthly growl,
Among the watery steeps.
Anon the wide
Of that grim over-cast
Was cleft in twain and rent from side to side
With lightnings from the vast.
And muttered roars,
Of blasts that hoarsely bray,
Came from the void where the eternal shores
Uprear their disarray.
The twanging shrouds
Sang in that wintry breath.
The sea tossed up her belly to the clouds,
And roared, insane, for death.
The ship drove high
Upon a spumy swell;
Drove high, deep surging, ‘neath that lonesome sky;
And diving - into silence fell.
SONG OF THE SHIP
And I toss the blue from left to right,
And I leap the driving surge,
And the tall seas follow close behind,
And ever the moaning of the wind
Wails softly a solemn dirge
Through the lofty heights
Whence the tender lights
Of evening take their flight.
And the night comes down in gloomy waves,
And the growling thunders rise,
Till their booming echoes fill the night,
And the lightning throws its vivid light
Across the murmuring skies;
Whilst mountainous steeps
And muttering deeps
Shape in the blast that raves.
And the light flies up across the waves,
And the dark gives place to dawn,
And I see the whirling clouds of spray
Break over half of the coming day
In the luridness of morn,
That lifts and flies
Far across the skies
Lighting a thousand graves.
THE PLACE OF STORMS
’Twas evening out at sea; and in the West
Rolled a black arch, while o’er the silent deep
Came from afar the calling of the sea,
The sad deep call that tells of coming woe,
As though the Ocean sorrowed in its soul,
And moaned, all helpless ‘gainst its destined rage
Grim and tremendous loomed that rugged arch,
Fashioned of murky mistiness it seemed,
As though some giant had built himself a bridge
To span the dying glory of the sun;
Building it not with stones, but thunder-clouds,
Piled up in hideous grandeur to the sky.
And I, upon a little bark afar,
Watched, as the wandering night leapt to the world
That fierce and awful splendour in the West
Blazing in lurid flamings ‘neath the gloom
Of that stupendous omen of the storm.
And as the night came down upon the sea,
From the quiet surface of the glassy wave
Rose a drear moaning, as from dead men’s throats;
While in the West sank low the flames of blood,
Leaving a core of red within the gloom,
To glow awhile like some vast smouldering ash,
Dying within the night...
And now against the dusk of evening grew,
Running across the arch’s crested height,
Wild, subtle, livid, serpent-twining flames
Of trickling green that sprang from dark to dark,
Across abysmal depths of shadowy vales;
From out the cavernous solitudes
That lurked within that monstrous hill of cloud,
Had leapt a multitude of wordless things,
Rejoicing in the coming tramp of death.
And underneath those writhing, gleaming forms,
I saw the hollow blackness of the arch
Loom dreadful, like a doorway in the night,
Opening upon the awesome solitudes
Of some unknown and hungry waste of woe.
And still around my little bark the calm
Held steadfastly, while ne’er a ripple broke
The silence of the ocean all around.
Then, all at once, there came a sullen clang
Of far re-echoing sound, as though a world,
Full in its flight among the stars, had struck
Upon some other world with direful crash.
And wonderingly upon the deck I stood,
Amazed at that loud thunderous clap of noise;
And more afraid than e’er I’d been before.
Thus as I stayed all trembling in my fear,
I heard again the shaking of night air
Beneath the impact of that fearsome note:
And now, alert in cold expectancy,
Discerned the true direction of the sound
Amid the bestial answering howls that called
Their mocking echoes back across the sea.
It came from that dread arch within the West,
Rising and falling with a muffled boom,
Half stifled in creation’s act.
Then, at that second call, I saw the ship,
As though obedient to a master voice,
Move slowly round upon her keel until
Direct unto the mountain-pile her bows
Looked straight. Then, by some unseen force impelled,
She ‘gan to gather way, so that the foam
Up-piled itself, a murmuring hill of surge
Beneath her forging prow; while driven wheals,
Formed half of water, half of new-born spume,
Spread round her hull and waked the calm
Of that cold silent sea to sudden life.
And so on through the grey of night we drove
Towards the gaping darkness waiting there,
From whence, at times, the sombre mutter broke
Of that huge thunder-calling ‘cross the dark.
Time passed in moments, long as weary hours,
And all the sea was soundless, save for where
It broke protesting ‘neath our surging bows.
And still we slid o’er that expectant sea,
‘Cross many a glassy lair of crouching deaths,
Until, at last, the arch’s highest crest
Almost o’erhung our masts, and then we stayed,
There just upon the verge that ope
ned on
The darkness of a sunless, lightless gloom.
An hour passed slowly by in silent dread,
Broken anon by that deep-throated call,
Which seemed so close, we felt, at times, the breath
Of some unholy Being just within
The mountain shades upon our starboard beam.
And then, a glow of subtle green, there came,
Stealing beneath the chasmic arch like dawn;
But such a dawn as one might look to see
Lighting the morning of some Hell-born day.
Slowly it grew apace, until in time,
Detail by detail, all that had been hid
Showed with a strange distinctness that impressed
My wakened spirit with a sense of awe:
For ‘neath that livid light there showed a sea
Tortured with storms - shaken with mighty winds;
And piled in frothing hills - carved in dank vales;
Or whirled in spouting towers of changeful light;
And other times pierced deep in noisome pits,
Whose glassy sides, bespecked with foam, revolved
With hideous churning sound, until it seemed
Some frightful Thing climbed growling from cold depths.
And all this while there grew upon mine ear
A distant shrieking clamour of fierce winds,
As though spent, gasping gales fought for the breath
With which to fill their mighty lungs again,
Ere they across the ocean madly rushed
To breathe their damp destruction far abroad.
Awhile, I stood; my soul bemused with fright,
Until another sound broke loud and clear,
A vast cyclonic wailing, and a noise
Of many seas commingling in wild rage.
Nearer it seemed to come, until I saw
A huge rotating hill upon my left,
From which a blazing hyporact sprang far,
Of phosphorescent foam and flame, until
The blackness of that midnight dome it reached,
As though a tower of restless surge were stacked
Up to the very skies, a gleaming mount
Of frothy white, through which dark waters gloomed;
And stalked across the night, a whirling giant,
Built of wandering deaths, until at last
It burst asunder in its headlong flight,
Falling upon the ocean with impact
More hugely loud upon mine ear than e’er
Had broke the deepest thunders of this world.
This gone, there came a hollow gurgling sob,
And scarce six cables’ length away, I saw,
Upon our starboard beam, a sudden gape,
Amid the wearying turmoil of the seas,
A deep and raging gulf, whose mouth stretched out
As though it would engorge the very waves
That tumbled in mad chaos on its lips.
Quickly it vanished, as it had appeared,
And o’er the self-same place where it had yawned,
There came an Iron Whirlwind, ploughing through,
And hurling far aside, the broken seas,
With such tempestuous force, it carved their crests
Into a maze of tattered wisps of spume,
That when it passed, a path of calm was left,
Paved with the crumbled fragments of the waves;
Yet, such a calm it was that one may see,
When some fierce beast veils anger in its breast;
For, in awhile, the calm departed hence,
And in its place, wild seas upreared their heads,
Grim seas, all mutilated with the blast,
And shaped like unto pyramids, so that I knew
I looked upon the Pyramidal Seas.
Then, from the sea’s far edge, upward there burst
A forest formed of fire, whose branches struck
Against the sky’s black dome with muffled sound
A strange and fearsome lightning, dull in hue,
And shedding all around a savage glare.
This quickly died, and in its stead there grew,
Across the dim horizon’s distant gloom,
A furious ruddy flare, from whence there rushed,
With mighty bellowings far across the sea,
The Fiery Tempest, which is scarcely seen,
Once in a thousand years, by mariners;
The fiery storm, in which the broad sky burns
In which the very waves are flames of blood,
Upleaping to the night; while blazing clouds
Wrap the whole world in one red shroud of fire.
With frightened wonder thus I stared awhile,
Until the vision faded in the night:
Then, all at once, a spectral thing beheld,
As from two mountains surging, upward drove
Dim minarets and castellated towers,
And all the ghostly splendour of the House
Where dead men’s souls await the coming end
The House of Storms, it was, formed ‘mid the spume,
A strange nocturnal structure from the sea
Growing upon my vision, like a cloud
That forms above the evening sun - from whence
No man can tell, so subtle is its birth.
Huge were its walls, and gloomy, formed of nights
Hurled from the blasted sea’s deep silences.
Awhile, I stood, all mazed with fear and doubt,
And looked with scarce believing eyes, until,
All in a moment’s space, I saw a glow
Shining within the house, and suddenly
Forth out from windows and from doors there burst
A deep and lurid glare that streamed afar
Across the tumbled chaos of the Place.
And then there rose the panting sounds of wind,
As though within the house a giant-great smith
Tortured some vast volcanic forge with blasts
Until its fervent fire lit up the night.
And then there came a clangour loud and fierce,
The hissing sounds of water met with flame,
And the deep breathings of some breathless Thing
Working within the house.
Awhile, I harked,
Half mad with curious thoughts to look within
Those great and gloomy walls; and to this end,
I climbed among the rigging - chance aloft,
Until, at last, my staring eyes beheld
A strange and awful sight. For there, I saw,
The subterranean fires of earth gush up,
In radiant flames through one great fiery cone,
Around which hissed the sea in steamy wreaths.
And, in that ruddy glare, my vision showed,
Upstanding in the sea, a monstrous form,
Which bent near by the fire and seemed to toil,
Surging a wind-wrought hammer far on high.
I climbed a little higher; there, I saw,
The huge and mighty shoulders of grim Storm
Heaving beneath the whirling of his sledge,
As ‘mid a thunderous din of beaten brine,
And far up-spurting reek of shattered seas,
He forged gigantic ocean-waves, from base
Of solid steel-blue waters, to dire crests
Arching their curved fierce fronts with awful skill,
And then, as finished, tossing each afar,
To roam o’er ceaseless miles, with hungry maw,
Until some hapless ship within their bowels,
They dive far to the deeps to glut their prey.
And on Storm’s head there perched an Albatross
That lonely bird of death, whose ghostly shriek,
At night, ‘mid gales is heard - an eldritch cry
Above the helmsman’s struggling form, as though
It would remind him of death’s near approach.
I saw a bloated Horror watching there
A waiting shape, a shark; and deeper still,
A hideous, loathsome writhing mass, that claimed
The Ocean’s silent bed - a foul affront
To Nature’s strange and wondrous handiwork,
Smirching the very deep with darker hue.
And other things there were that drew my sight;
For round about, with curious eyes, there watched,
A crowding, peering host of sodden souls
Staring with fearful orbs upon huge Storm;
And whispering among themselves their grief
At each gaunt sea complete, and sent abroad.
And ever through the doors, with noiseful tread,
Leapt the returning foam-maned steeds; and each
Bore a wet soul upon its spumy crest,
Scarcely unfleshed, and still all palpitant
With the warm life from which it had been wrenched.
And, as each sea deposed its quivering load;
From the whole ghostly concourse, waiting, rose
Sadly a breathless moan of sympathy,
As in their midst they made a roomy place
For each poor ‘wildered soul, while fluttering hands
Guided it thence with damp caressing touch.
Then, as I stared, Storm turned himself about,
So that I saw his face, and lo! his eyes
Were caverns, whence came echoing moans that seemed
Like unto hollow sounds within a vault,
As though the wordless dead groaned in their sleep.
And as he bent beside that mighty forge,
His cheeks puffed out - two bellied thunder-clouds,
Forth from his mouth there came a shaking blast,
With a shrill screaming noise of unpent gales,
Through which a lower vulturous sound I heard,
As though a ghoulish legion sang of death.
And all this time, his gale-born hammer beat
Upon the crying brine; while down his sides,
Gushed the foam-sweat in many a reeking stream.
Then, all at once, from underneath our keel,
A wave belched upwards from the silent sea,
Like some huge, spume-gloved hand thrust from black depths,
And caught the little bark and hurled her out
Into the raging tumult ‘neath the arch;
And in a moment, all around, I saw
A vast and dreadful wall encircling me
A night-black thunder wall of tufted cloud,
Shutting from sight the wonders I had viewed;
As though an amphitheatre of gloom
Had closed around the ship, whence multitudes
Of unknown things, and watching spirits glared.
And in the centre grew a sudden tree,
Formed all its length of pale and quaking light.
Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson Page 193