The day's wild ocean sings and thunders,
And beats against the fatal shore,
This breaker with dumb sorrow sunders,
And these like laughing victors roar,
Their sheen the joy of vernal wonders,
Their sheen—vast winter's shining hoar.

In wrath triumphant forward-swinging,
The lifted billow calls, and fails,
A joyous giant, shouting, singing,
Its voice the voice of sounding gales,
Its glory in the sunlight flinging
Whose noonday glow it holds and hails.

Across the sea, now lightly foaming,
Another rears, that stirs the deep,
And floods the shore with silence, gloaming;
Morose and slow it seems to creep
Like one who drops, worn out with roaming,
From his bent back a fatal heap.

Each moment new, with changing power,
The surf is thundering, alone.
Now idle, now it seems to lower,
Hymning a Silence all unknown,
Like a dark heart asleep,—for hour
On hour in restless monotone.