A Midnight Vision

A grey peak, naked as some sharp-edged cloud, Splintering the smooth breast of a placid sky, Rough to the hand, it charms the tired eye; Small tufts of sea-pink round its basement crowd, A tide beneath, that mounts and tumbles by In monstrous wrinkles, each ten cubits high. Around a ship-less, sail-less wilderness, On high, with arms outstretched as in distress, Cutting the lone grey sky, one broken cross--

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--Say, long since seen, long-vanished sign of grace, Man’s needs, man’s sorrows, why from thy dim height Thy most austere, remote, abiding place, Steal’st thou, grey ghost, to visit me to-night?