The Island
The Island
Original Text
Jay Macpherson, Poems Twice Told: The Boatman & Welcoming Disaster (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981): 41.
1No man alone an island: we
2Stand circled with a lapping sea.
3I break the ring and let you go:
4Above my head the waters flow.
5Look inward, love, and no more sea,
6No death, no change, eternity
7Lapped round us like a crystal wall
8To island, and that island all.
Publication Start Year
1957
Publication Notes
The Boatman (Toronto: Oxford, 1957).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form
Special Copyright
"The Island" © Jay Macpherson. Printed gratis, and specifically for Representative Poetry Online, with permission of the author. As published in Poems Twice Told (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981). Any other use, including reproduction for any purposes, educational or otherwise, will require explicit written permission from Jay Macpherson.