Ice Floes

Cold: cold the glitter of the steel-gray deep!

         A nor’ land fleet comes drifting down the bay,

         Turretless “monitors” in close array –

That slowly out against the long swell, creep,

While heave their clashing hulks, as if in sleep

         Some wine-drenched, monster son of Anak lay,

         Making the scales of his vast armor sway

And crackle with his breathing! On they sweep,

But a more subtle and resistless foe

         Than that which strewed the Armada’s sails like chaff,

Attacks the invading Vikings, from below,

         Scuttling in secret, with a long low laugh,

The advancing fleet – till now, of all their host,

But a chill reek is left, the sunken corsairs’ ghosts.