I am a tawny hinge,
Once of a lucent pair,
Attached to half a broken door
By a single screw!
Adrift on a mound of slippery waste –
the lock won’t shut!

     What difference?
     What I have done.
     At least in love Loved.

But scattered flotsam now.
The remnant of some once grand ship.
    
     Oh, where is my other half?

My loving wife,
My tender, tender Love.

There,
Out there, across the endless sea.

      Where is she now?

I left her in our nest with babe,
For war and for glory.
And a fair widow made.

A ghost.
I have returned.

       Where is my lover?

The one who knows.
She who is my heart,
And I hers.
The one I left with child
In Plymouth Port,
So I could perish in the sea
Burned on my frigate on a foreign shoal.

      But am I not returned?

Searching for the one:

In a field of bright flowers,
A thousand wear her smiles,
Masks that delight to tease and trick.
I dally here and there.
Each scent a thorny promise:
(‘Oh, take me close.’)
So many sunny faces
Who with lips parted, grimaced,
And turned!

      But where is my love?

My one true…
Who knows before I.
And from cold stone,
Turns me warm.

      Why did I leave you?
      And will I ever find you?

My true Love,
The only one who when we’re done,
Brings final rest.