When the tide's at the full and the spray flies wild
And the storm-battered cliffs loom grey,
The gulls are flung like litter in the wind
Far above the tossing boats in the bay.

Now grey-gloved fingers feel from afar,
Muffling with a shroud of fear,
For the mist's stolen in with a furtive glance
At the lighthouse winking on the pier.

The sucking surf on the shingle shore
Rattles like smugglers' bones
Stirring in the dark and dreary depths
With gales of ghoulish groans.

Wrestling waves in a turmoil twist
Their heaving muscles in mounds,
And crash to a crescendo of spittle and spray -
A rejoicing of ocean sounds!

02/27/2010

Author's Note: (The first poem I ever wrote, apart from at primary school!) From notes written on Shakespeare Cliff, Dover, Shakespeare's alleged setting for Gloucester's attempted suicide in King Lear. "There is a cliff whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep" (Shakespeare. King Lear Act 4 Scene 1)

Posted on 02/27/2010
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