Mermaid...

by David Alston

Wild geese fly on by moonlight,
from an elm the shriek of an owl
shakes the gloom of a shuttered room
where seasalt memories prowl

and the Captain tosses through the night,
(with his lady by his side),
adrift on a stream of heaving dream
in a silver moonlit tide.

He saw the Mermaid, touched the scales
of her cold and clammy skin,
and heard her voice that was cool as the ice
of her icehard heart within.

A sparrowhawk waits, a ringdove quails
deep in the boughs of an oak;
the night winds moan as through fluted bone;
and he thinks of how she spoke

of the wish and the wish and the wish she'd grant.
(His lady lies still but awake.)
Through the house's hoard of old creaking board
the damp moves stake by stake –

up from the cellar, flagged and dank,
rusting the door's iron sneck;
glass panes fall, each astragal
is seagreen, warped and wet.

The shutters seize, the door locks tight
with the grain of swelling pine.
No line is true. Through and through
seeps the bitter brine.

Wild geese fly on by moonlight,
stars glimmer on the tide,
and the Captain weeps as the waters creep
(for the Mermaid lies by his side).