Classic Poem

It was a sight both wild and dread
To see the living for the dead —
One stubborn and unaided form —
Battling with an ocean storm, —
Toiling up the jagged path,
Chased by the billows in their wrath,
Bearing the dripping shape away
Which the sea had deemed its prey.

Thus laden, Roland among the rocks
Strove upward mid the desperate shocks
Of wind and wave — climbing a track
As crooked as that on the tempest's wrack
Where the armed Thunder in his ire
Descends in a zigzag path of fire!
The long black hair
Of the drowned form he strove to bear,
Flashed abroad on the wet sea air,
Wild as the tresses of Despair:
And he thought, as he gazed on the drooping head
Where the writhing locks were so wildly spread,
Of the twisted horrors Medusa wore —
And a shudder pierced him to the core.

But now he heard, or deemed he heard,
The sound of that most piteous word,
That only word the full heart knows
To syllable its joys and woes, —
A sigh! Like a night-bird sweeping near,
Its soft wing fluttered past his ear,
And he felt the heave of the rounded breast
Which close against his own was prest:
Then through his frame he took new strength,
And with upward toiling gained at length
The gusty height! A moment there,
While the lightning lent its sheeted glare,
That group stood in the misty air
Like statues on a terrace high,
Relieved on a dusky wall of sky.