Destroyers

width=350px|ON this primeval strip of western land, With purple bays and tongues of shining sand, Time, like an echoing tide, Moves drowsily in idle ebb and flow; The sunshine slumbers in the tangled grass And homely folk with simple greeting pass As to their worship or their work they go. Man, earth, and sea Seem linked in elemental harmony And my insurgent sorrow finds release In dreams of peace.

But silent, grey, Out of the curtained haze, Across the bay Two fierce destroyers glide with bows afoam And predatory gaze, Like cormorants that seek a submerged prey. An angel of destruction guards the door And keeps the peace of our ancestral home; Freedom to dream, to work, and to adore, These vagrant days, nights of untroubled breath, Are bought with death. Henry Head