Maiden Course Poem by Niall Limelaw

When once I sailed a maiden course,
Timber-rot ‘neath plucky hull
Sparring Neptune's spuming horse
Swollen squawks the baying gull.

Mired in filth and fear and dark
I, a vessel fit to burst,
Brim-full, breaching, rent asunder
Aside she washed, ashore, the first.

Come fortune! Claim the blustered tarp!
And blow it softly, path anew
Twixt the currents, chasms dark
‘Cross rolling swelling, blotted blue.

And thus when I laid eye on thee
Respite offered on thy sand
Battened hatch to briny deep
And wading buoyant onto land.

If the eye should be a porthole
Through which my soul you can perceive
Then surely you have pierced my pupil
And sunk the dread inside of me.

I pray that love's own sake be false
For truer ne'er has been my vow
Knotted tender, breathe thy pulse
And linger lips upon thy brow.