Where the Great Chief's sullen crest
Looks over the land,
The splendour floods from the west,
Ruddied and grand.
Like a vast Armada's wrecked
And ravaged pride,
Reeling over a flecked
And crimsoned tide.
Or a cachalot lashing the spray
In his wounded throe,
On a South sea far away
Where the whalers go.
Till the light is gone and the skies
Are cold and dree
As a blue gulf in the ice
Of a Polar sea.
Notes
From SMALL CRAFT: Sailor Ballads and Chantys, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by George H. Doran Co., New York, US, © 1919, p. 137.
The 5th in a set of poems entitled "Songs of the Wild."
Charley Noble
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