When the great sea roars, like a million lions
With leaping bodies and lashing manes,
And flings itself in a terrible passion
Across the tide’s black, reeking plains,
My soul springs up in its clay-walled prison,
In a mad desire to be out and free―
To shake the land with that animal power,
And be one with the tempest that rocks the sea.
When the tide creeps out and the moon looks over
The far, blue, cloud-vexed mountain line,
And the night is sweet, and the red and white clover
Like stars in the murmurous meadow shine;
When the winds crawl back, like beasts that are conquered,
And the sea lies sobbing, her passion spent,―
My soul rests glad, in its wise, stern prison
And sinks to a tender and sweet content.
“Moods” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).