A Sailor's Lament - Part V

Requiescat in Mare

Sea in stormy weather (Jean Antoine Théodore Gudin, 1844)

---

Read Part IV here.

---

V. Requiescat in Mare

Silence falls between the moonlit shafts
Piercing through the shimmering firmament,
Slow currents carve eternal epitaphs
And bear the corpus cold in its descent.
A silver schola for a silent choir
Whispers antiphons processing past
A bed of sand and stone for funeral pyre,
Shadow impassable for pall and casket.
"Here at the perishing of light,
Here at the end of searching sight,
Where these are the exacting price
Of fortitude and sacrifice,
There lies a sailor."

---

To Be Continued

The rising light across the deep
Awakes the harbour from its sleep...

---

Read Part VI here.

---

---