II

What did I feel that night? You are curious. How should I tell?

Does it matter so much what I felt? You rescued me—yet—was it well

That you came unwish'd for, uncall'd, between me and the deep and my doom,

Three days since, three more dark days of the Godless gloom

Of a life without sun, without health, with out hope, without any delight

In anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night

When the rolling eyes of the light-house there on the fatal neck

Of land running out into rock—they had saved many hundreds from wreck—

Glared on our way toward death, I remember I thought, as we past,

Does it matter how many they saved? we are all of us wreck'd at last—

'Do you fear?' and there came thro' the roar of the breaker a whisper, a breath,

'Fear? am I not with you? I am frighted at life not death.'