Heart-hurt, the days drowning cover my head,
Draw me to dark, downward. This is nothing
But revolt of stiff-neck Nature, glutton fed
On desires, rebels myriad. Untoward they spring
From cracking faults in the soul, restless bred
To raise tempests within my narrow ring
Of human skull. From such waves mind has fled,
Whose waters never quench, but salty sting.

O’er lash of tide let patient hand be held:
So storm quiets and in reprieve of space,
In heart from hard-punishing violence quelled,
Dusky may bloom a little light, O God—thy grace.
Wracked by wind, by waves of wildness felled,
Yet may I, frail bark, shoreward on them race.