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This poem is taken from PN Review 147, Volume 29 Number 1, September - October 2002.

Three Poems Jeremy Over

Your Awful Voice

Let the dreadful engines
Prattle, swell and rough seas employ
For this, there Etna, there
Come down, come away
Sound the trumpet, scold and scratch
Starve all within, reap with ease
On the sprightly oboy play
In the groves, those flow'ry groves
Blue lightning

Down you must go
Luff, haul aft the sheet
Labour i' the quarries of a stony heart
Port, port, port for better or for worse
And bite beyond the tarpaulin boys

The mournful monarch she jilts all jollity
So unfit your revels
Her ends come away
And vex and scorn in hollow rocks
...


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