The Dykes

  We have no heart for the fishing, we have no hand for the oar--
  All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us now no more;
  All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt where we do not deny--
  There is no proof in the bread we eat or rest in the toil we ply.

  Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea-gate, dyke, and
     groin--
  Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway
     join.
  They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work
     stood fast.
  We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our
     peace is past.

  Far off, the full tide clambers and slips, mouthing and testing
     all,
  Nipping the flanks of the water-gates, baying along the wall;
  Turning the shingle, returning the shingle, changing the set of the
     sand ...
  We are too far from the beach, men say, to know how the outworks
     stand.

  So we come down, uneasy, to look, uneasily pacing the beach.
  These are the dykes our fathers made: we have never known a
     breach.
  Time and again has the gale blown by and we were not afraid;
  Now we come only to look at the dykes--at the dykes our fathers
     made.

  O’er the marsh where the homesteads cower apart the harried sunlight
     flies,
  Shifts and considers, wanes and recovers, scatters and sickens and
     dies--
  An evil ember bedded in ash--a spark blown west by the wind ...
  We are surrendered to night and the sea--the gale and the tide
     behind!

  At the bridge of the lower saltings the cattle gather and blare,
  Roused by the feet of running men, dazed by the lantern glare.
  Unbar and let them away for their lives--the levels drown as they
     stand,
  Where the flood-wash forces the sluices aback and the ditches deliver
     inland.

  Ninefold deep to the top of the dykes the galloping breakers stride,
  And their overcarried spray is a sea--a sea on the landward side.
  Coming, like stallions they paw with their hooves, going they snatch
     with their teeth,
  Till the bents and the furze and the sand are dragged out, and the
     old-time wattles beneath!

  Bid men gather fuel for fire, the tar and the oil and the tow--
  Flame we shall need, not smoke, in the dark if the riddled seabanks
     go.
  Bid the ringers watch in the tower (who knows what the dawn shall
     prove?)
  Each with his rope between his feet and the trembling bells above.

  Now we can only wait till the day, wait and apportion our shame.
  These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look to the
     same.
  Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we
     delayed:
  Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons as our fathers we have
     betrayed.

         *       *       *       *       *

  Walking along the wreck of the dykes, watching the work of the seas,
  These were the dykes our fathers made to our great profit and ease;
  But the peace is gone and the profit is gone, and the old sure day
     withdrawn ...
  That our own houses show as strange when we come back in the dawn!