As fierce as fear, as weathers wild
and blast the island’s man and child.
What depth of force-found love demands,
to farm rough seas and rugged lands?
Who’d grip an oar as would a spade,
of earthen hands and salty flayed.
With skill and brawn worked surf and soil,
as one, would all and share the spoil.
Wrought stern and held through wrack and wreck,
and roused each morn at weather’s beck.
A boy who would come quick a man
and toughen up what life began.
Not yet the dawn, to sea, they\'d put,
in mighty strengths of mind and gut.
Through spray and spume, the ocean trawl
and larders filled with winter\'s haul.
That season when the rising lark,
where ridges rolled till falling dark.
When men and maids to dig and skew,
where nowt but aches and taters grew.
Of love, who’d sing of summer seas,
a harvesting a wanton breeze.
Who’d tip his cap, who’d brave to dare
his charms to lure a maiden fair.
Poor autumn\'s child in tumbling winds,
to school, be damned, for summer sins.
Of line and rule, to book and pen,
from wayward waifs to scholars then.
Where now, alas, those wildish youths
when stolen from their island roots?
To spade and tack they\'ll take no more,
who then to grasp the helve and oar?
For they were born where once their own,
where now but mists and shadows roam.
Where men to ploughs as would to boats,
for they were born where once were poets.