Wreck of a Schooner

In the darkest gloom

A cannon’s boom

Blew into dreams from elsewhere,

Roused by the raging storm

And the wreck of a schooner,

The promise of cargo

Washed onto the beach

By the swollen sea.

Breakers bore down,

Rolling in interminable hosts,

A torrent of foamy ghosts,

The only sounds of wind and whales,

And then – the ship,

One mast broken,

Tangled in a maze of rigging and sails.

A great cry rose from the shore,

As the sea swept the wreck and bore

Men, spars, casks and bulwarks

Into the boiling surge.

Death’s score

Tolled

By the knell

Of the ship’s bell.

 

© Kim M. Russell, 2016

Image found on www.victorianweb.org