The beach

Last night tar skies were harbinger
Wind awash with ides
Galloped the stretched beach
Grain routed over grain
Fled the tide in vain.

Like Hannibal from West
Rolled billious stratus
Bloated with scorn
A pall, moonless and deaf
Told of pain by morn.

Sail open below the awful ranks
With little room leeward she ran
And was broken
Vessel threshed 'gainst cliffs
Wood rent and canvas tore
As land and air and water
Vied in blackness, each unsure.

Unblessed her crew were lost
Their cries like candles in a furnace tossed
Dashed and drawn down restless deeps
For Davey Jones their souls to keep.

Now sun is splayed like deck planks
Upon the beach
Sick mast rifted through deck
Decorates the break.
Figurehead cast upon a crest
Lies a lonely mourner on the wreck.
The rest has become flotsam
On the path in this morning fresh
And some young wife
Dons spinster's dress
Such crushing loss,
In passing interest.