On old Cape Cod

Chapter 27: The Beach Grass Threnody

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About This Book

A collection of lyrical poems that celebrates and mourns a coastal landscape through images of dunes, marshes, sea, winds, birds, flowers, lighthouses, shipwrecks, and changing seasons. The work blends close natural observation with wistful memory and maritime lore, moving between quiet descriptive pieces and dramatic evocations of storms and loss. Recurring motifs such as salt, sand, driftwood, and light bind domestic scenes and seafaring sketches to themes of transience, rootedness, and the consoling, restorative power of place.

The Beach Grass Threnody

Lo in the wind the beach grass sings

A medley of fantastic things

That stirs the silence of the ear

With elfin notes we scarce may hear,

From formless shapes grotesque and strange

That lurk beyond the vision’s range.

The fingers of what moon beam sprite,

Or lonely demon of the night,

Have strummed those sweetly plaintive strings

To the weird melody that wrings

A note of haunting mystery

From the chill vastness of the sea.