Poem by Cicely Fox Smith

The Fight on the Island

Thro' the roaring dark of the tempest
    We had struggled the whole night long,
With seas that broke on the bulwarks
    And headwinds stubborn and strong,
When we came with the wind behind us
      To an isle of slumber and song.

And we sailed thro' the scented palm-trees
    Up an oarless beautiful reach,
And we lay to rest from our faring
    On the sunbaked glittering beach,
And dwelt with the shy strange people
    With their soft sweet languorous speech.

Till once in the grand calm twilight
    When the beaches were loud with glee,
Brothers, by right of peril
    Of the fight and the stormy sea,
Rose up and cursed one another
    By all the names there be.

And one reached out for a pistol
    And one for a knife to hurl,
All for the sake of a woman, —
    A brown-skinned slip of a girl
With a voice like the distant surges
    And teeth as white as a pearl.

And we buried the dead man sadly
    Where the breakers plunge and comb,
In the sound of the sea's old crooning,
    Over against the foam,
With the face on his still heart smiling
    Of a girl he had loved at home.

We were sick of the wild shy people,
    We knew we had dreamed too long:
And a slain man sat at the revel
    And the beach was bitter with wrong,
And we sailed with the wind against us
    From the isle of slumber and song.

1. Ghosts in Deptford
2. Farewell to Anzac
3. What the Old Man Said
4. The Old Love and the New
5. Old Cob Wall

Print

1559 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version