SEASCAPE, EVENING
In brazen disarray,
The tattered banners of defeated day
Hang in the sky;
Night musters
With far, high-clustered cloudbanks to the east;
Sound is the surge of a restless, refluent tide
On warm, wet softness of sand.
Shadows smear the scarped face of a cliff;
Tired the gulls glide
To the nurture of gentle sleep;
Sound is the slow sweep of waves
Stirring shingle on a darkening shore.
This sea has known, of old, tall ships of sail,
Clean prows cleaving;
Their dying, as the day dies,
A long, reluctant leaving
In tattered splendour, sinking to a west
Of change and progress;
Their crying, as the gull cries,
A plaintive grieving
Of low-toned lamentation to the hosts
Of harsh destroying darkness;
Sound is the gush and gurgle of returning water
Through a rough texture of rocks.
Grey ghosts of sail yet hover in the sky
This summer evening,
Bold, red banners high,
Brave, stark, remnant ribbons, defiant of the dark:
Sound is the swell of white-nippled breasts of the sea
Breathing a night benediction.
