The Emergent Sea

Harken, Atlanticist,
To the deeping gyre,
Heedless wreckage,
Aye, the ire,
The wasted patronage,
Slipping under ocean shelf,
That furtive quagmire,
Fallen in the gulf.

There was a time when you thought:
“If the world should crumble, let it fall—
I shall gather the ruin,
And through my lordship,
Usher in the dawn.”

You sped on the wings of your fancy,
Swiftly, upon that device you flew,
Unconcerned with future clemency,
Should the eye of scorn fall on you.

Two arms outstretched,
Pulling the lands together,
A bold scheme, no less,
But lacking leather for the tether.
More’s the pity—there the sunder.

Did it never cross your thresh,
That all your uppity labours,
Binding us to that bloated heft,
Would drag us into ill weathers?

Why, you oughtn’t have thought
You could drag the Leaguer of the West
Over the sea to lands you sought,
Americana yoked at your behest.

You thought you could bind the lands,
Raise a colossus of old,
Whose legs would straddle western lands,
Whose body reared-up as Atlantis bold.

But your great hands could not move the lands.
Your colossus legs split and buckled,
Tripping on hubris’ gait,
Before fully weaned or suckled.

What became of your grand delusion?
Why, it fell into the ocean.
From west of west, no aid did come,
Despite all your devotion.

Pulling against the axial wobble,
Chains to set the world to rights,
A great year & great leap fumbled,
Yet skies not set in deigned night.
Atlantic Age dipped from sight—
Lo! Our deranged hopes and sunken might.

These are the fruits of all your labours,
Your mewling and commotion,
While the abyss still spits and murmurs
At your altogether, untoward motion.

Look at these things you have wrought—
All toil heedless in vain.
Look at all the bubbles come laughing up,
At your machinations, profane.

More’s the pity, more’s the doubt,
You mockery of man—
Snuff that dreaded pilot out,
And return to Prometheus his due,
The hallowed fire that birthed you anew.

You gathered up that holy flame
In some demoniac rite,
With dampened spark, the future tamed,
An age where no hero reigns,
To rid us of this dwindling blight.

It was your lot to squander
These waning years of ours,
Binding ourselves to places yonder,
To wonder at the supplicant, coat-tailed bride,
While we, in managed decline, decried.

In all of Christendom, I never knew
A cabal of rotters as fell as you.

Silence, while battles in the eyrie
Saw hawks devour the doves—
And tangled in that feathered blood,
They, forgetting where they stood,
And played as only doves could.

You have eroded every stone
On which we had oaths to swear.
Now, none to bully back in tow,
You at the helm with your medusic stare.

The elite, replete in hidden vales,
Pallid masonry beyond the pale,
Whose busy hands, in frenzied state,
Erecting impossible geometries in their estates.

Charts, stocks, and latest frocks,
Appeasers, pleasers,
You oligarch teasers.

With you stuck to the wheel,
Wishing upon an empty throne,
Fallen and brought to heel—
Too late to atone.
Your stuck colours amassed,
They, as cold as crossed bones.

Despite early hiccoughs,
You sell plan as-seen,
Tall-tales—“We’re made of sterner stuff!”
All aboard the pipe dream.

Hollow out the holds,
Ring-fence them in,
Return to your abodes,
For supper do sing.
In the middle, we do as told—
And the middle, why, the middle never folds.

Quick champagne do,
Strawberries & cream,
And off we rush,
Aboard HMS Pipe Dream.

Hush below deck,
No one shouts down the captain,
He’s a little green in the neck,
And needs you to help him.
Pity Providence’s son who leads.

We should have set off under new stars,
Parameters reached and placed ourselves,
You cannot blame us,
Because you were harmed—
The heavens not arrayed as our fancies depend.

Then is then, and now is now.
We cannot reconcile.
The old allies went out in style,
Not to be spurred awake by your guile.

We are fixed, transfixed on saving face,
No tricks, to switch with rank & file.
We have fallen out of grace—
The anointed, reviled, to stiff upper lip resigned.

And in front of all human race,
We drag the spark unto its resting place,
The grave of empires in Atalanta arraigned.

We should have set off under new stars.
Instead, we hitched on fading Polaris—
Out goes the light on the Atlantic farce.

Wake up afeared captain, it’s time for tea,
Our figurehead Europe sinks into the sea,
The drowned lady calls for thee.