Fergus Allen
The Exile
Low in the west, I watch myself in motion
And laugh to see an exiled king surviving
Upheld by cliffs above a heaving ocean,
Lodged in ruins where Atlantic rains, driving
Unchecked across nude limestone acres, humble
His eighty years, absolve the will from striving.
Gales blow up from the west, the wave-tops crumble
In spray, shatter on cliffs, their form and action
Lost in tumult where sea-birds dive and tumble.
Revolution revealed the faithful faction
Who brought me (trembling) to this eagle's station
And strain to succour me, Virtue's exaction.
The red-hot sun descends, a nightmare nation
Surges through sleep to mimic my disaster—
New memories, not of my own creation.
The mob shouts and inciting drums beat faster,
The rumble and tread draws near, cries for slaughter
Sound while they burn effigies of their master.
I see a roof in flames, wild without water,
Wild men storming a gateway, leagued for plunder
And hear the sobbing of my ravished daughter.
Then flight across the plains to seas which sunder
King from kingdom and cockatoo from raven;
A frail smack carried me to the waves' thunder,
To a landing of sad flotsam in craven
Darkness (falling on the cliff path, wind whipping
Words away), to life on this black-faced haven.
These islands . . . this seaboard is shunned by shipping;
Events pass overhead like clouds to scatter
Fortune and rain on foreign mountains, gripping
Cities with hope or fear. Winter storms batter
And undermine my cliffs. My servants—lowly,
Hankering for a restoration—chatter
About miracles, something strange and holy.
All weakness, dreamers' nonsense, a fool's notion.
Fire destroyed my home, my asylum slowly
Falls to the consuming, wave-ridden ocean.
Fergus Allen, The Brown Parrots of Providencia, Faber and Faber, 1999.