Solway Ford
HE greets you with a smile from friendly eyes;
But never speaks, nor rises from his bed:
Beneath the green night of the sea he lies,
The whole world’s waters weighing on his head.
The empty wain made slowly over the sand;
And he, with hands in pockets by the side
Was trudging, deep in dream, the while he scanned
With blue, unseeing eyes the far-off tide:
When, stumbling in a hole, with startled neigh,
His young horse reared, and, snatching at the rein,
He slipped: the wheels crushed on him as he lay;
Then, tilting over him, the lumbering wain
Turned turtle as the plunging beast broke free,
And made for home: and pinioned and half-dead
He lay, and listened to the far-off sea;
And seemed to hear it surging overhead
Already, though ’twas full an hour or more
Until high-tide, when Solway’s shining flood
Should sweep the shallow firth from shore to shore.
He felt a salty tingle in his blood;
And seemed to stifle, drowning. Then again,
he knew that he must lie a lingering while
Before the sea might close above his pain,
Although the advancing waves had scarce a mile
To travel, creeping nearer, inch by inch,
With little runs and sallies over the sand.
Cooped in the dark, he felt his body flinch
From each cold wave as it drew nearer hand.
He saw the froth of each oncoming crest;
And felt the tugging of the ebb and flow,
And waves already breaking over his breast;
Though still far-off they murmured, faint and low;
Yet, creeping nearer, inch by inch, and now
He felt the cold drench of the drowning wave,
And the salt cold of lips and brow;
And sank, and sank . . . while still, as in a grave,
In the close dark beneath the crushing cart,
He lay, and listened to the far-off sea.
Wave after wave was knocking at his heart,
And swishing, swishing, swishing carelessly
About the wain—cool waves that never reached
His cracking lips, to slake his hell-hot thirst .
Shrill in his ear a startled barn-owl screeched .
He smelt the smell of oil-cake . . . when there burst,
Through the big barn’s wide-open door, the sea—
The whole sea sweeping on him with a roar . . .
He clutched a falling rafter, dizzily . . .
Then sank through drowning deeps, to rise no more.
Down, ever down, a hundred years he sank
Through cold green death, ten thousand fathoms deep.
His fiery lips deep draughts of cold sea drank
That filled his body with strange icy sleep,
Until he felt no longer that numb ache,
The dead-weight lifted from his legs at last:
And yet, he gazed with wondering eyes awake
Up the green glassy gloom through which he passed:
And saw, far overhead, the keels of ships
Grow smaller and smaller, dwindling out of sight;
And watched the bubbles rising from his lips;
And silver salmon swimming in green night;
And queer big, golden bream with scarlet fins
And emerald eyes and fiery-flashing tails;
Enormous eels with purple-spotted skins;
And mammoth unknown fish with sapphire scales
That bore down on him with red jaws agape,
Like yawning furnaces of blinding heat;
And when it seemed to him as though escape
From those hell-mouths were hopeless, his bare feet
Touched bottom: and he lay down in his place
Among the dreamless legion of the drowned,
The calm of deeps unsounded on his face,
And calm within his heart; while all around
Upon the midmost ocean’s crystal floor
The naked bodies of dead seamen lay,
Dropped, sheer and clean, from hubbub, brawl and roar,
To peace, too deep for any tide to sway.
The little waves were lapping round the cart
Already, when they rescued him from death.
Life cannot touch the quiet of his heart
To joy or sorrow, as, with easy breath,
And smiling lips upon his back he lies,
And never speaks, nor rises from his bead;
Gazing through those green glooms with happy eyes,
While gold and sapphire fish swim overhead.
