Page:Poems Cook.djvu/355

'Tis a Curl that seems to borrow
All its strength from Hate and Sorrow,
  Pain and Scorn;
Leaving the lip it lifteth,
Cold as the snow that drifteth
  On the thorn.

That dark Curl ever turneth,
As the coiling adder yearneth
  To its prey;
Like that adder, ever shedding
Fear round the footstep treading
  In its way.

Oh! a fearful thing to gaze on,
Is the scathing Curl that plays on
  Human lips;
Fierce as the lightning-flashes,
Sharp as the gore-soak'd lashes
  Of men's whips.

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There's a red Curl bursting in terrible form,
By the mast that stood up in the longest storm;
Onward shooteth the ringlet flake;
Nor asketh nor heedeth the way it shall take;
And it turns, and it twines, while its fork'd tongue shines,
With a thirst that the great deep cannot slake.
Round and round is the wild tress wound,
Till frightfully fast is the pine-tree bound;
It hisses and sings where the lifeboat swings,
It roars and it rushes, it climbs and it clings
From the hull to the spars, and blackens and chars
With its waving grace and circling rings.
It leapeth within the temples of earth,
Like demon furies in revelling mirth;

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