The Sandbar
The Sandbar
Original Text
Theodore Goodridge Roberts, The Leather Bottle (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1934): 15.
Internet Archive.
1Here the black crows gather;
2 Here the herons wade
3Along the amber shallows,
4 Far from their willow shade.
5Here the patient clams
6 Trail out their senseless scrawls,
7And here the glassy tide
8 Breaks white in sudden squalls.
9Driftwood lodges here,
10 Polished and smooth and grey,
11Washed down from above the Falls
12 Hundreds of miles away;
13Shingles thin as paper,
14 Rafters and tide-worn planks
15Ripped from bridges and ferries
16 When the river topped her banks.
17Here the loud crows gather:
18 Here the slim terns fly
19With curved wings flashed like silver
20 Against the cobalt sky:
21Here the whitecaps ride
22 When the wind blows up at dawn;
23And here the plovers cry
24 When wind and sun are gone.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form