The Drowning of Ariel 

                                   I 

When the squall struck he danced with glee 

Believing himself kith of the old sea rover 

Sharing his nemesis; the sea 

Caught unaware by the swell Ariel heeled over 

Dipped her gunnels deep, swigged a raver's 

Draught of sweet brine, flung up her slender 

Prow, sat back on her stern, and foundered 

He lay motionless in the water, his clothes 

Ballooning about him pulling him down, down 

But Keats’ book in his coat pocket rose 

Like a dolphin, sang out in his dead friend's own 

Voice and summoned its fellows to rescue drowning 

Shelley. At the last they came. Arching in a long file 

over the waves and carried him away to Sappho's isle. 

On the beach a dead thing. Bloated, amorphous 

Hung about with bladderwrack. A sodden coat 

Rucked and wrinkled about it. Blubberous 

Sea-changed. Mute. 

They sent him skywards in a warrior's boat 

Piled iron and stout timbers about his pyre 

And on the flames flung frankincense, saltpetre and myrrh 

                                       II 

Seeking an entry point at this Northern shore 

I kneel in supplication and submit to your embrace 

Womb of life. I knock on the half open door 

at the unknown edge where wind tears off my face 

Where the wind sings out directions in a high voice 

Buoy me up, cleanse me in body and spirit 

My brave craft, my pilot 

Shelley was a bold seafarer, who did not fear 

The awful shadow of the unseen power 

In the dizzy ravine or on the rugged glacier 

He rang like the plucked strings of the Aoelian lyre 

As the blue flame flows over a coal on fire 

His spirit moved with the ever changing melody 

Which charges this various world with beauty 

Even now when I hear his wondrous song 

Ring out from the still cave of the witch Poesy 

My eyes water and the short hairs rise along 

The nape of my neck, as though I were tipsy 

With some intoxicant or transported to a windy 

Shore where our human souls converse 

With the awful power of the universe 

Do not mourn Shelley in the winter storm 

When a chill wind rushes down the icy reach 

Remember him in the radiant dawn 

When the sun caresses the silent beach 

And in the fields the Skylark's song, is speech 

Too potent for a human pen 

Remember Shelley and he lives again. 

                                          III 

As I stroke into the waves, my shoulder muscles 

Burn with a cold flame. The current pushes 

Me hard towards the river mouth. Tired corpuscles 

Force short breaths. The sea, cold and muddy, rushes 

my eyes and mouth. I sing out the snatches 

of Keats I remember and wait in vain for dolphins 

Then tumble onto the shingle, and bruise my shins 

Jeremy Solnick – January 2011