Flotsam
O flotsam stranded on the beach
Half buried in the oozing sand,
A sudden step, an outstretched hand,
And you are snatched beyond the reach
Of clutching waves. What brought you here
From far off climes beyond the seas,
The sport of every furtive breeze,
A wanderer for many a year?
What gulfs of ocean’s nether world
Your paths have plumbed, I cannot know,
To what abyss the Krakens go,
Or where Leviathan was hurled.
What current dark, I wonder, links
Your lot with mine on this lone shore, -
But there is only silence more
Unbroken than the Memphian spinx.
And am I fain to speculate
Upon the burden of your past?
When I, myself, am flotsam cast
Ashore a little while to wait
For Time’s resistless tides that sweep
In endless waves of night and day
Across the shoaling milky way
From some vast, unimagined deep!