The Cataclysm

When a great wave disturbs the ocean cold And throws the bottom waters to the sky, Strange apparitions on the surface lie, Great battered ships, stripped of their gloss and gold, And, writhing in their pain, sea-monsters old, Who stain the waters with a bloody dye, With unaccustomed mouths bellow and cry And vex the waves with struggling fin and fold. And with these too come little trivial things Tossed from the deeps by the same casual hand ; A faint sea flower, dragged from the lowest sand, That will not undulate its luminous wings In the slow tides again, lies dead and swings Along the muddy ripples to the land.