Rounding The Cape (English Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(After Roy Campbell and Luis De Camōes)

The titan Adamastor is awoken from sleep
and his spectre rises where two oceans meet,
in tempest draws water from the deep,
from the sky fall rain, hail and icy sleet.

Table Mountain's jagged ridges above us loom
very strong squalls toss the ship to and thro,
crashing surf echoes prophecies of doom
as up and down and again up we go.

Some people calls this place the fairest Cape
where we struggle to survive a great storm,
are heading to the open sea to escape.
Lingering is a presence in a spectre form.

Chains of blue-white lightning does it dispel,
roaring do of great woe and wonder tell.

[References: "Rounding the Cape" by Roy Campbell and "Os Lusiadas" by Luis De Camōes.
I am quoting Roy Campbell's poem: "Rounding the Cape here as I think that it is not well-known:

"Rounding the Cape" by Roy Campbell

"The low sun whitens on the flying squalls,
against the cliffs the long grey surge is rolled
where Adamastor from his marble halls
threatens the sons of Lusus as of old."

"Faint on the glare uptowers the dauntless form
into whose shade abysmal we draw,
down on our decks, from far above the storm
grin the stark ridges of his broken jaw."

"Across his back, unheeded, we have broken
whole forests: heedless of the blood we've spilled,
in thunder still his prophecies are spoken,
in silence, by the centuries, fulfilled."

"Farewell, terrific shade! though I go free
still of the powers of darkness art thou Lord:
I watch the phantom sinking in the sea
of all that I have hated or adored."

"The prow glides smoothly on through seas quiescent:
but where the last point sinks into the deep,
the land lies dark beneath the rising crescemt,
and Night, the Negro, murmurs in his sleep."]
© Gert Strydom