Storm and unconscionable winds once cast On grinding shingle, masking gap-toothed rock, This ancient hulk. Rent hull, and broken mast, She sprawls sand-mounded, of sea birds the mock. Her sailors, drowned, forgotten, rot in mould, Or hang in stagnant quiet of the deep -- The brave, the afraid into one silence sold; Their end a memory fainter than of sleep. She held good merchandise. She paced in pride The uncharted paths men trace in ocean's foam. Now laps the ripple in her broken side, And zephyr in tamarisk softly whispers, Home. The dreamer scans her in the sea-blue air, And, sipping of contrast, finds the day more fair. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOLD COAST CUSTOMS by EDITH SITWELL SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER ARAB LOVE SONG by FRANCIS THOMPSON THE TOOTHPICK by GHALIB IBN RIBAH AL-HAJJAM PSALM 103 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE TO VENETIAN ARTISTS by WILLIAM BLAKE |