 | Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne |  |
IV.
A PHANTOM IN THE CLOUDS.
All day the blast, with furious ramp and roar,Sweeps the gaunt hill-tops, piles the vapors high,
Thro' infinite distance, up the tortured sky—
Till to one nurtured on the ocean-shore,
It seems—with eyes half-shut to hill and moor—
The anguished sea waves' multitudinous cry—
It changes! deepening .. Christ! what agony
Doth some doomed spirit on these wild winds outpour!
At last a lull! stirred by slow wafts of air!
When lo! o'er dismal wastes of stormy wreck,
Cloud-wrought, an awful form and face abhorred!
Thine, thine, Iscariot! smitten by mad despair,
With lurid eyeballs strained, and writhing neck,
Round which is coiled a blood-red phantom cord!
| Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | |