The Welsh Sea

Far out across Carnarvon bay,
Beneath the evening waves,
The ancient dead begin their day
And stream among the graves.

Listen, for they of ghostly speech,
Who died when Christ was born,
May dance upon the golden beach
That once was golden corn.

And you may learn of Dyfed's reign,
And dream Nemedian tales
Of Kings who sailed in ships from Spain
And lent their swords to Wales.

Listen, for like a golden snake
The Ocean twists and stirs,
And whispers how the dead men wake
And call across the years.

James Elroy Flecker

James Elroy Flecker was an English poet and playwright born in London. He is best remembered for his poem "The Golden Journey to Samarkand" and his plays. Flecker was associated with the neo-romantic movement, and his works often explored themes of travel and classical antiquity. He died of tuberculosis at a young age, cutting short a promising literary career.

James Elroy Flecker

Prayer

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

The First Sonnet Of Bathrolaire

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

The Ballad Of The Student In The South

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

Destroyer Of Ships, Men, Cities

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

English

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I.
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Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
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I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep
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The Dying Patriot

Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills,
Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills,
Day of my dreams, O day!
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Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
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And the streets where the great men go.

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:
O evening dreams!

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The Song Of The Dead

Hear now the Song of the Dead, in the North by the torn berg-edges,
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South, in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East, in the heat-rotted jungle-hollows,
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Song of the Dead in the West in the Barrens, the pass that betrayed them,
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Hear now the Song of the Dead!

I

We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
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A Fragment

O pouring westering streams
Shouting that I have leapt the mountain bar,
Down curve on curve my journey's white way gleams -
My road along the river of return.

I know the countries where the white moons burn,
And heavy star on star
Dips on the pale and crystal desert hills.
I know the river of the sun that fills
With founts of gold the lakes of Orient sky.

        *        *        *        *        *

And I have heard a voice of broken seas
And from the cliffs a cry.
Ah still they learn, those cave-eared Cyclades,
The Triton's friendly or his fearful horn,
And why the deep sea-bells but seldom chime,
And how those waves and with what spell-swept rhyme
In years of morning, on a summer's morn
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...

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The Song of the Derelict

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                    (A treacherous lover, the sea!)
                    Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
                    A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light
                    And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
                    From the doom that ye meted to me.

                    I was sister to 'Terrible', seventy-four,
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                    And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more
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