Poem by Henry Timrod

Too Long, O Spirit of Storm

Too long, O Spirit of Storm,
 Thy lightning sleeps in its sheath!
I am sick to the soul of yon pallid sky,
 And the moveless sea beneath.

Come down in thy strength on the deep!
 Worse dangers there are in life,
When the waves are still, and the skies look fair,
 Than in their wildest strife.

A friend I knew, whose days
 Were as calm as this sky overhead;
But one blue morn that was fairest of all,
 The heart in his bosom fell dead.

And they thought him alive while he walked
 The streets that he walked in youth—
Ah! little they guessed the seeming man
 Was a soulless corpse in sooth.

Come down in thy strength, O Storm!
 And lash the deep till it raves!
I am sick to the soul of that quiet sea,
 Which hides ten thousand graves.

1. On Pressing Some Flowers
2. Hymn Sung at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C.
3. A Common Thought
4. The Two Armies
5. Sonnets. 14. Are These Wild Thoughts, Thus Fettered in My Rhymes

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