Fisherwives at home make weary watch

For masts to show above the waves

And signal that their men are safe

At least until another day.

But hope fades fast with face forlorn

When night-time comes and all alone

They weep and cry to God in sorrow

To keep those souls upon the horror

That is the sea safe till at home

They hold them in their arms once more.

Lights burn all night in houses many

Making beacons to guide the company

Who toil and sweat as weary slaves

To head their stricken ship into the waves.

The vessel writhes in labour pains

And threatens to deliver it’s babes

Premature into the arms

Of Neptune’s bloodthirsty midwife.

That dreadful cry echoes again

The sickening laughter of the deep.

A man has fallen overboard;

Soon swallowed by the dribbling mouth

Whose lashing tongue of foam and frost

Licks the lips of that dread beast.

Sensing victory rewards it’s fight

It flails watery arms with greater might.

The merciless beating takes its toll,

the boat is small, it cringes now.

The trawler founders, sinks slowly down.

There’s peace below but pain above.

Full sixty foot waves lash the deck;

Neptune demands another wreck.

Fortune hides her face from them.

Despair their only companion then.

The boat is lost, the cargo gone,

No more that battle rages on.

Exposure, exhaustion, they are the foe.

The beast now has them in it’s jaw.

Weary, weary, why not sleep?

Better that than this precarious seat

Upon this bucking beast of hell

That roars in anger and threshes them down.

The ocean heaves as it gorges itself

On the human prey within it’s maw

Who as they die it swallows one by one,

Dropping them into it’s cavernous bowels.

In homes upon that distant shore

Hope dies at dawn to rise no more.

The beacons die as the sun comes out

But for that crew there’s no glad shout.

Instead they weep and mourn new dead,

Husbands lost, some before they wed.

Their lives are shattered, who can they turn to?

Some turn to God, some think he’s failed them.

The sea brings death and set them apart,

Yet who but God, can mend broken hearts?

Attlee.