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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  The Storm

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Storm

By Alcæus (c. 620–c. 580 B.C.)

Translation of Sir William Jones

NOW here, now there, the wild waves sweep,

Whilst we, betwixt them o’er the deep,

In shatter’d tempest-beaten bark,

With laboring ropes are onward driven,

The billows dashing o’er our dark

Upheavèd deck—in tatters riven

Our sails—whose yawning rents between

The raging sea and sky are seen.

*****

Loose from their hold our anchors burst,

And then the third, the fatal wave

Comes rolling onward like the first,

And doubles all our toil to save.