But who a flattering tide may trust,
Or favoring breeze, or aught in end?—­
Careening under startling blasts
The sheeted towers of sails impend;
While, gathering bale, behind is bred
A livid storm-bow, like a rainbow dead.

  At trumpet-call the topmen spring;
And, urged by after-call in stress,
Yet other tribes of tars ascend
The rigging’s howling wilderness;
But ere yard-ends alert they win,
Hell rules in heaven with hurricane-fire
    and din.

  The spars, athwart at spiry height,
Like quaking Lima’s crosses rock;
Like bees the clustering sailors cling
Against the shrouds, or take the shock
Flat on the swept yard-arms aslant,
Dipped like the wheeling condor’s pinions
    gaunt.

A LULL! and tongues of languid flame
Lick every boom, and lambent show
Electric ’gainst each face aloft;
The herds of clouds with bellowings go: 
The black ship rears—­beset—­harassed,
Then plunges far with luminous antlers vast.

In trim betimes they turn from land,
Some shivered sails and spars they stow;
One watch, dismissed, they troll the can,
While loud the billow thumps the bow—­
Vies with the fist that smites the board,
Obstreperous at each reveller’s jovial word.

  Of royal oak by storms confirmed,
The tested hull her lineage shows: 
Vainly the plungings whelm her prow—­
She rallies, rears, she sturdier grows: 
Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home, With batteries housed she rams the watery
     dome.

DIM seen adrift through driving scud,
The wan moon shows in plight forlorn;
Then, pinched in visage, fades and fades
Like to the faces drowned at morn,
When deeps engulfed the flag-ship’s crew,
And, shrilling round, the inscrutable haglets
     flew.

And still they fly, nor now they cry,
But constant fan a second wake,
Unflagging pinions ply and ply,
Abreast their course intent they take;
Their silence marks a stable mood,
They patient keep their eager neighborhood.

  Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea,
Heaved in a combing pyramid full,
Spent at its climax, in collapse
Down headlong thundering stuns the hull: 
The trophy drops; but, reared again,
Shows Mars’ high-altar and contemns the
     main.

REBUILT it stands, the brag of arms,
Transferred in site—­no thought of where
The sensitive needle keeps its place,
And starts, disturbed, a quiverer there;
The helmsman rubs the clouded glass—­
Peers in, but lets the trembling portent pass.

  Let pass as well his shipmates do
(Whose dream of power no tremors jar)
Fears for the fleet convoyed astern: 
“Our flag they fly, they share our star;
Spain’s galleons great in hull are stout: 
Manned by our men—­like us they’ll ride it
     out.”

Tonight’s the night that ends the week—­
Ends day and week and month and year: 
A fourfold imminent flickering time,
For now the midnight draws anear: 
Eight bells! and passing-bells they be—­
The Old year fades, the Old Year dies at sea.