Storm
Storm
Original Text
The Complete Poetical Works of William Gay , ed. J. Glen Oliphant (Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1911): 54-56.
Internet Archive; and Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS), digital text sponsored by AustLit: http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/oztexts
1I love not when the oily seas
2 Heave huge and slow beneath the sun,
3When decks are hot, and dead the breeze,
4 And wits are dropping one by one.
5But when the South wind fiercely breaks
6 His frozen bonds and rushes forth
7Across the roaring sea and shakes
8 His icy spear against the North;
9When breakers thunder on the lee,
10 When timbers crash and sails are rent,
11When wild and louder grows the sea,
12 And black the reeling firmament;
13O then at last my soul awakes,
14 A thousand joys within her rise,
15And all the bounds of sense she breaks
16 To soar exulting through the skies.
17I love not when my ship of Fate
18 Glides on before some fragrant breeze,
19And slowly tracks with costly freight
20 The sapphire deeps of prosperous seas.
21But when beneath the sky of death
22 She staggers through the seas of pain,
23When passion's hot tempestuous breath
24 Through shroud and tackle shrieks amain,
25When deepening glooms the day o'erwhelm,
26 And all is one wild wreck of form,
27O then resolved I grasp the helm
28 And proudly guide her through the storm.
RPO poem Editors
Cameron La Follette
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form