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HMS Endeavour
Flooded full, resting in icy blue darkness.
Dark shape beneath the cold sheets above.
Watery bed below, the sails a strewn pillow,
Tattered, frozen to a warped other, by the wrong
Element.
It’s hard to see down there, I’d say. Would the writing
‘Cross entitled end still read as it was writ? Or had the
Rot of sea and ages excoriated all but scratchings?
The vague, indentations that had started, now ending,
Your name, carried off by current and days.
Yet it is spoken, fathomed, down there in among the
Silence. Preserved not, by teeming salts, nor polishing
Pilots, but in the poetry of your wreck. It is a solemn
Declaration of cause, martyred by failure.
Here lies the spirit of attempt, here lies HMS Endeavour.
Dark shape beneath the cold sheets above.
Watery bed below, the sails a strewn pillow,
Tattered, frozen to a warped other, by the wrong
Element.
It’s hard to see down there, I’d say. Would the writing
‘Cross entitled end still read as it was writ? Or had the
Rot of sea and ages excoriated all but scratchings?
The vague, indentations that had started, now ending,
Your name, carried off by current and days.
Yet it is spoken, fathomed, down there in among the
Silence. Preserved not, by teeming salts, nor polishing
Pilots, but in the poetry of your wreck. It is a solemn
Declaration of cause, martyred by failure.
Here lies the spirit of attempt, here lies HMS Endeavour.
Published 8th Dec 2022
Author's Note
I got mixed up between the Endurance and Endeavour - bit of a failure on my part! Sssshh it's thematic! :)
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