midnight
The sea became one boiling , seething , hissing surface of foam , pressed and flattened by the weight of the tempest , which laid the black rocks bare on the ledge , and drove the water into both mouths of the inlet , until , with a crashing shock , it met in the basin , and broke over and over the cove , and high up the wall of rocks on the other side . Two or three streams of whirlwind meeting , too , over the island , drove the lagoon hither and thither , catching up the white pond-lilies by their long stems , twisting off the dense thickets of mangroves by the roots , burrowing holes in the sandy beds of the cactus , and shearing off their flat , thorny leaves and needle points by the acre together ; then a rushing whirl around the cocoa-nuts , bowing their tufted tops at first till they nearly touched the earth , when , the stout trunks snapping like glass , they would go pitching and tossing from base to crown , careering and dancing aloft , borne away with sand and mangrove , cactus , flowers , and sticks , into the flying clouds before the hurricane . Then another lull ; and from the opposite direction again thundered the terrible breath of the demons , sweeping thousands of sea-birds , with broken pinions , screaming amid the gale , hurling them against the crag , stripping the feathers from their crushed carcasses , and in a moment burying them a foot deep in clouds of sand . No more pauses or lulls now in the hurtling tempest ; but with a steady , tremendous roar , which made the earth tremble , the rocks quake , and laid every vestige of vegetation flat to the ground , it came on mightier and mightier , and fiercer and fiercer , with black masses of never-ending clouds sweeping close down like dark midnight , as if heaven and earth had come together . All through the gloomy day and through the night this elemental war , with its legions of careering demons , continued to lash the sea and smite the land ; until , as if satiated with vengeance , the clouds belched forth in red lightning , vomiting out peal upon peal of awful thunder as a parting salute , and then , moderating down to a hard gale from another quarter , broke away . The blue sky appeared , and the glorious sun once more came up in his majesty over the distant hills of Cuba . `` A weary weed , tossed to and fro , Drearily drenched in the ocean brine , Soaring high and sinking low , Lashed along without will of mine ; Sport of the spoom of the surging sea ; Flung on the foam , afar and near , Mark my manifold mystery -- Growth and grace in their place appear . ''