The Old Wife's Mood

Composed while walking along the beach in a winter storm.

'Don’t grumble and growl and roar at me

Old man, when your temper’s turning,

I’ve long since tired of your vain disputes

In the halls of your lordship’s learning,

You think, old man, you can tame me now

By beating your breakers shoreward,

I’ve never put up with your antics yet

When your spume is fuming forward.'

 

‘Don’t shriek at me,’ said the old man sea

As she whipped at his crests in temper,

‘It’s always the way that your humour turns

Each bleak and harsh September;

Will ever you calm yourself, you witch

And settle my troubled rancour,

Or shriek and howl like a grey old owl

At my spindrift’s sullen anger?’

 

‘Old, I was old when the world was young

In my hallowed depths and deeps,

What did I want with a wife like you

Whose temper never sleeps?’

‘Don’t carp and cavil at me,’ she shrilled

In the runnels at rocks uncovered,

‘I’d turn the tide in a backward slide

For the sake of a new-found lover.’

 

She turned to whip at the whining wires:

‘I’m leaving you and your brood.’

The sea came grumbling round the Pier

‘It’s only the old wife’s mood.

She’s light and happy in other months,

In love that’s ever the way.’

The old wife crept from her hiding place

To join him, out in the bay.

 

David Lewis Paget

 

Reviews

[Marie]

That's actually very nice...moody and cold...brilliant and bold...