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There is a country, barren, and bleak
Of which the shadows speak
In whispers of the Forgotten Word,
To eidolons of songs unheard:
Of ill-wrought waves of the endless sea
Feasting on that lone, dark country.

No wind sighs through grass, dry and low
And ne’er doth moon or sunlight throw
On gardens forgotten, to flowers that were
Light and the memory that fragrances stir.
Entombed by sorrows, ancient thorns only
Remain in the silence, forbidden and lonely.

Like dead men’s hearts, all is still, and stone
In that country where darkness dwells alone.
A man may wander here, where no men belong
To hear the waves haunting the phantoms of song:
Perhaps remnants of the kinsmen that sleep
Beneath the foam and poison of the deep.

But terror and the dark alone may tread
The silent avenues of cities now dead.
Man and beast, wind and love shall nevermore
Wander the sands that rest upon the shore.
The dead lie not: here there are no graves
Only the cheerless past, and the waves.

© 2021 Marten Hoyle