Moonless Tide

Leaf 293 – Reflections

 

Anne Packard - Rowboat on Blue (1976)

I’ve always enjoyed tales of pirates and treasure islands, of tall ships and smugglers haunting out-of-the-way river inlets and rugged coves. This poem attempts to evoke something of the spirit of such tales, especially as I encountered them when I was a child holidaying in Cornwall each summer.

 

 

MOONLESS TIDE

 

A lone lantern –

listens for sculls slipped

in a shadowy cove.

 

 

 

 

from 'A Cornish Smuggler' by Captain Harry Carter (1900)