[Editor: This poem by William Blocksidge (also known as William Baylebridge) was published in Songs o’ the South (1908).]
Song of the Storm King
A thousand miles of raging main
I spurn beneath my hasting tread;
I plough with scorn the foaming plain,
And fill the deep-down caves with dead!
And O! I laugh as I lay their bones
Where the Kings of the ocean cold have thrones,
In those caverns dark and dread!
I lash the earth; the land I fill
With fear, with ruin foul, with blood;
I speed, man’s foolish hopes to kill,
O’er mount and valley, plain and flood!
And O! I laugh as my crop I see;
For a right good harvest pleases me,
As across the gale I scud!
With dark Despair, my faithful bride,
Thus many a league I haste along;
For who can stay my kingly pride
Among the paltry mortal throng?
So O! I laugh in my scornful glee;
For to play the tyrant pleases me,
A King so bold and strong!
Source:
William Blocksidge, Songs o’ the South, London: Watts, 1908, p. 10
Editor’s notes:
hasting = being in haste, moving in haste; hastening
main = the high sea, the open ocean
o’er = (archaic) over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)
scud = clouds, mist, rain, or spray driven by the wind; a gust of wind; to move fast in a straight line when driven by the wind, or in a manner similar to being driven by the wind
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