Poetry Archives

So ravishingly soft upon the tide
  Of the infuriate gust, it did career,
  It might have soothed its rugged charioteer,
And sunk him to a zephyr; then it died,
Melting in melody;—and I descried,
  Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
  Of Druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Pour’d his lone song, to which the surge replied:
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim’s knell,
  Lost in some wild enchanted forest’s bounds,
  By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
Such as, ’tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?