SEA
I lie asleep by granite keep
Where ancient columns stand
Or gently lap on coral cap
And tropic island sand.
I fulminate on walls of slate
And crumbling bastions storm.
Sand beaches sheet about their feet
And bays and inlets form.
I demarcate an island state
With undisputed line.
Bold headlands reave and channels cleave
With arrow heads of brine.
Whilst in the white Antarctic blight
No chiselled contour tells
Where ramparts face the tidal race
And land my rule repels.
I suffer keel, of wood or steel,
To pass unhindered by
When dire intent lies indolent
And slumbering am I.
My tranquil mood, calm attitude,
But treacherous disguise;
With change abrupt I can erupt
In savage enterprise.
And when I rage, with wind engage
In tempest, ships are tossed
‘Til angry waves become their grave
Of countless vessels lost.
Each wave, wind dressed; each white-tipped crest,
A tombstone passes for
As deep and cold in billowed fold
Sleep mariners of yore.
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