The waves welcome,
and they wash - how they wash.
When you take your leave,
they are self-sufficient;
the last you hear of them
is quite in character.
Some days they don breastplates,
recite Matthew Arnold,
boom and scold in shoals so serried,
hurrying to leap up
to their downfall - 'Ah,
Mephistopheles!' -
marble fragmenting,
white-tiger foam,
'List, list, O, list!' -
and sometimes they rustle their lace,
anonymity chuckling softly
to 'poor Mr Toots'.
You pour out your whole
heartache.
Go on - do you good -
and your bitternesses too...
Yet their choice voices,
quite beyond, will sing
of what they will -
salt-shellac a stone,
leave trails of holey shells,
rummage lapidary gravel.
....................
Second stanza referring to/quoting from 'Dover Beach' - Matthew Arnold, 'Dr Faustus' - Marlowe, 'Hamlet' - Shakespeare, 'Dombey and Son' - Charles Dickens.
