Poem

The Curse on Dunoon

By Florence Wilkinson
The sea and the sand
Go hand in hand.
“I am Memory,” quoth the sea,
“A sleepless mind,
I urge, reiterate.”
“I am Vengeance,” quoth the sand,
“Lidless and blind,
I scourge, obliterate.”
The pines kept watch beside Dunoon;
They slanted toward the sea.
Betwixt their plumage leaned the moon,
Pointed at him
A finger slim
When stumbling through the twilight dim
Came shapes and revelry,
Faint footsteps from the sea,
Soft thunder of the sliding sands
And footsteps from the sea.
She blew across the yellow dune;
She came a mystery,
A vagrant and a nameless tune.
Quick of the year
Hummed at his ear,
Sap of young leaves, a prophet clear.
The pines cried, “She is yours;
Ecstasy that endures!”
The insistent sea sang in his blood;
The stars were lamps and lures.
She was the witch light of Dunoon,
Scooped from the sparkling sea,
With hands like golden cups of June.
“ O rainbow Mary,
Wild sea-fairy!”
But spirits do not love to tarry.
She gave him kisses three,
Foam of the dying sea.
The dunes sobbed all night long for her;
The pines talked to the sea.
“ I am the master of Dunoon,
Dunoon beside the sea.
Death comes to take me — none too soon!
(Vision of Mary,
Tarry, tarry!)
Cursed be my lands
If any hands
Smite down that wood beside the sands
Where Mary came to me.”
The sands heard and the sea.
Soft thunder of the sliding sands
And footsteps from the sea.
The sea and the sand
Go hand in hand.
“I am Memory,” quoth the sea,
“A sleepless mind,
I urge, reiterate.”
“I am Vengeance,” quoth the sand,
“Lidless and blind,
I scourge, obliterate.”
He died and still the pine trees stood
Communing with the sea
Till stranger folk struck down the wood;
Then the slow sands
Reached forth their hands,
Crawled up along the wasted lands;
Also in memory
Muttered the gray-lipped sea.
Soft thunder of the sliding sands
And long wash of the sea.
The blind dunes quenched the springing land;
The strong remembering sea
Followed the lithe heels of the sand.
The limpets spawn
Where, years agone,
Her bright feet rippled up the lawn:
Meagre crustaceans crook
Through every oozy nook,
And where she danced between the doors
Pale polyps peer and look.
The sea and the sand
Go hand in hand.
“I am Memory,” quoth the sea,
“A sleepless mind,
I urge, reiterate.”
“I am Vengeance,”quoth the sand,
“Lidless and blind,
I scourge, obliterate.”