On the Massachusetts Coast

(NIGHT)

O the gloom of the night with the wind and the rain
Howling in, beating in from the desolate main,
And anon with a cry o'er the tempest prevailing
Some wreck of the deep the wild ruins bewailing!
From the Shoals to Nantucket the lights are half hid
The rush and the roar of the breakers amid;
Ships turn from their moorings; the boats are adrift;
Not a merciful star looking down through a rift;
But blackness and fear with the wind and the rain
Howling in, beating in from the desolate main.

(MORNING)

Now the sun tips with fire every wave's tossing crest;
The gulls are blown seaward, the wind's in the west;
And the wide-rolling deep and the kelp-laden shore
See cloud and fog fleeing to gray Labrador.
The ships, all a-thrill with the joy of the breeze,
Sail portward as light as the foam on the seas;
Not a film in the sky--not a mote in the air--
The blue seems the bright wall of heaven laid bare--
And the gloom of the night and its ghostly cry scorning,
We are glad in the azure and splendor of morning!