Though time estranges and fate disperses, We have had our loves and our loving-mercies ; Though the gifts of the light in the end are curses, Yet bides the gift of the darkness – sleep !] See ! girt with tempest and winged with thunder, And clad with lightning and shod with sleet, The strong winds treading the swift waves sunder The flying rollers with frothy feet. One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on The skyline, staining the green gulf crimson, A death stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun, That strikes through his stormy winding-sheet. Oh ! brave white horses ! you gather and gallop, The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins ; Oh! brave white horses! you gather and gallop, The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins ; Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop In your hollow backs, on your high arched manes. I would ride as never [a] man has ridden In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden, I would ride as never man has ridden To gulfs foreshadowed through straits forbidden, Where no light wearies and no love wanes, No love, where no love, no love wanes. Elgar's setting In addition to the D major melody, Elgar incorporates music from earlier songs in the cycle: "Where Corals Lie" (at "God surely loved us a little then") and "Sea Slumber Song" (at "The skies were fairer"). References Sladen, Douglas. The Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon, 1912, London, Constable & Co. Notes Australian poems Songs by Edward Elgar 1870 poems 1899 songs