I phillips- wolley] SKETCHES OF THE ISLANDS 181 



A Sou' West Storm. 



From the brooding gloom of the wild Sou West 



The scuttering black duck come, 

 While the wheeling mallards drop in to rest 

 In the whisp'ring sedge where they had their nest, 



And our loosened shingles hum. 



There's a threat in the tops of the swaying trees, 



And the sea's skin seems to crawl, 

 The sheep and the cattle are ill at ease, 

 A blind swell travels before the breeze 



And tosses my anchored yawl. 



Oh, heavy the drops on the barn roof ring, 



Stars spatter on ev'ry pane, 

 Across the mist goes a found 'ring wing 

 Blown out of the sky — The salt sprays sting 



And the lights begin to wane. 



On the sodden pastures the splashes spread, 



Wide stretches of cheerless gray ; 

 In the hollow tree the coon is a 'bed, 

 The murdering mink to his cave has fled, 



And the fish have fled the bay. 



Then the wind that is wet with an old world's tears, 



That mourns for millions dead, 

 Grown mad with the woe of a thousand years, 

 Burdened with prayers that no kind God hears, 



Shrieks like a soul in its dread. 



All Life cowers dumb while the dead trees cry, 



The long dead kings who have stood 

 Through countless years with their crowns in the sky, 

 They totter and fall and the wind sweeps by 



And Hell is loose in the wood. 



But the trees may crash and the house walls throb 



And the loosened shingles hum; 

 The Heavens may rave, and the wet winds sob, 

 For faith has a cache that no winds may rob — 



She knows that Spring will come. 



