A Question: At Sea

How dark the clouds that hide the sky from sight,
While winds like human souls moan round our keel,
Their woe inexplicable to reveal—
With lone, unsilenced cries for lost delight,
That suns by day, or journeying moons by night
Can find no more, till the vast heavens reel
And the strong worlds are rent by that last peal,
The trumpet-blast that puts old Time to flight.

Then, when the End has come, and Chaos reigns,
And darkness mocks past glories of the sun,
Will human hearts forget their human pains
In some unearthly blessedness, new-won?
Shall we outlast this brief earth's transient gains,
And know ourselves the one thing not undone?