Where once the water of your face

Where once the waters ofyour face

Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows,

The dead turns up its eye;

Where once the mermen through your ice

Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers

Through salt and root and roe.

Where once your green knots sank their splice

Into the tided cord, there goes

The green unraveller,

His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose

To cut the channels at their source

And lay the wet fruits low.

Invisible, your clocking tides

Break on the lovebeds of the weeds;

The weed of love's left dry;

There round about your stones the shades

Of children go who, from their voids,

Cry to the dolphined sea.

Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids

Shall not be latched while magic glides

Sage on the earth and sky;

There shall be corals in your beds

There shall be serpents in your tides,

Till all our sea-faiths die.