Sea Fevers & The Lorelei Reformed

By Agnes Wathall

Sea Fevers

No ancient mariner I,
   Hawker of public crosses,
Snaring the passersby
   With my necklace of albatrosses.

I blink no glittering eye
   Between tufts of gray sea mosses
Nor in the high road ply
   My trade of guilts and glosses.

But a dark and inward sky
   Tracks the flotsam of my losses.
No more becalmed to lie,
   The skeleton ship tosses.

The Lorelei Reformed

Don’t set your will to cross the stream, my love,
     when I stand opposite and waiting.
The thinning, thicking mists swirl from my eyes.
     My lips are traitor to my words, and baiting.

 Our hands seem close enough to touch, my love,
      but waves ride treacherous in the narrows
 and if you trick a path from rock to rock
      you’ll find them mossy stepping-stones to sorrows.

 So kiss me only with your eyes, my love--
      then turn your back on love’s confusion.
 I take no dark delight in drownings, love:
      my song is powerless, and my spell illusion.

Agnes Wathall (1907-2004) Unfortunately, we know very little about Agnes Louise Wathall Tatera beyond the fact that she published a small book of poems, A Trick of Light, under her maiden name, Agnes Wathall. The book was published by Braun-Brumfield in 1984. From the book's Acknowledgements page, we have culled the names of a number of journals and sundry publications that published her work: among them The Lyric, Orphic Lute, Orbis, Modern Haiku, Bonsai, Quickenings, Prophetic Voices, Hobby Horse and The Chicago Tribune.
—Michael R. Burch