Departing Hull 
     on the Evening Ferry

 

Hoist the evening star
and wave goodbye to Hull,
to England's land of quiet plenty.
Say goodbye to what has been
to every way I've known.

​

England's greatest flag,
its paws of steel
and its heart of bronze
is... but a finite thing,
a land unto itself.

​

This shoreline marks the edge:
the chess board of 
a hundred moves here
is kissed goodbye.

​

Home, or what has been,
its ins and outs, its
halo moves, its gauntlet 
of the everyday,
this penny farthing rolling
out to sea is dwindling now
upon the night.
At this solstice hour 
of burning dark and
scarlet fire, 
an empty song of frothing light
is spilt upon a dancing sea.

​

And all that fades in quiet honour
of some England long forgotten,
before we named her glory
and pinned her to the mast.

​

Poets too for England
though steel she better knows.
This mainstay of the righteous,
of honour wrongly earned.

​

This double land we're leaving,
it's falling at the dusk,
its heart of sunken clay
is misting into night.

​

To starboard now and South!
Full steam ahead!!

​

​

DG