Destroyers and Other Verses/Destroyers
For other versions of this work, see Destroyers (Head).
DESTROYERS
On this primeval strip of western land,With purple bays and tongues of shining sand,Time, like and echoing tide,Moves drowsily in idle ebb and flow;The sunshine slumbers in the tangled grassAnd homely folk with simple greeting pass,As to their worship or their work they go.Man, earth, and seaSeem linked in elemental harmony,And my insurgent sorrow finds releaseIn dreams of peace.
But silent, grey,Out of the curtained haze,Across the bayTwo fierce destroyers glide with bows a-foamAnd predatory gaze,Like cormorants that seek a submerged prey.An angel of destruction guards the doorAnd keeps the peace of our ancestral home;Freedom to dream, to work, and to adore,These vagrant days, nights of untroubled breath,Are bought with death.