THE REEFS.
All the grim rocks that stand guard about Scilly—
Wingletang, Great Smith and Little Granilly,
The Barrel of Butter, Dropnose and Hellweather—
Started to boast of their conquests together,
Of drowned men and gallant, tall vessels laid low
While gulls wheeled about them like flurries of snow
And green combers romped at them smashing in thunder,
Gurgling and booming in caverns down under,
Sending their diamond-drops flying in showers.
"Oh," said the reefs, "what a business is ours!
Since saints in coracles paddled from Erin
(Fishing our waters for sinners and herrin')
And purple-sailed triremes of Hamilco came
To the Islands of Tin, we've played at the game.
We shattered the galleys of conquering Rome,
The galleons of Philip that scudded for home
(The sea-molluscs slime on their glittering gear);
We plundered the plundering French privateer,
We caught the great Indiaman head in the wind
And gutted her hold of the treasures of Ind;
We sank a whole fleet of three-deckers one night
(The drift of the sand keeps their culverins bright),
And cloudy tea-clippers that raced from Canton
Swept into our clutches—and never went on.
Come steel leviathans scorning disaster
We scrapped them as fast—if anything faster.
So pick up your pilot and take a cross-bearing,
Sound us and chart us from Lion to Tearing,
And ring us with lighthouses, day-marks and buoys,
The gales are our hunters, the fogs our decoys.
We shall not go hungry; we grin and we wait,
Black-fanged and foam-drabbled, the wolves at the Gate."
Patlander.