(no subject)

[nineveh_uk]

I came across this poem recently in a children’s anthology of verse. I haven’t found it on the internet, it isn’t in the author’s Collected Verse, and it isn’t in the local copyright library. Quite why, goodness only knows, because it is simply marvellous. Those who like poems about chained mermaids, read on.

They call to one another

They call to one another
    in the prisons of the sea
the mermen and mermaidens
    bound under lock and key 
down in the green and salty dens 
    and dungeons of the sea,
lying about in chains but
    dying to be free:
and this is why shortsighted men
    believe them not to be
for down in their dark dungeons it
    is very hard to see.

But sometimes morning fishermen
    drag up in the net
bits of bright glass or the silver comb
    of an old vanity set
or a letter rather hard to read
    because it is still wet
sent to remind us never, never
    never to forget
the mermen and mermaidens
    in the prisons of the sea
who call to one another
    when the stars of morning rise
and the stars of evening set
    for I have heard them calling
and I can hear them yet.

George Barker, from To Aylsham Fair