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suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the quaking 

soil. Turn back. 

Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking 

again slowly in new sockets. The cold domed room of the 

tower waits. Through the barbacans the shafts of light are 

moving ever, slowly ever as my feet are sinking, creeping 

duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep 

blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait, their 

pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of 

abandoned platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will 

not sleep there when this night comes. A shut door of a 

silent tower, entombing their—blind bodies, the 

panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted his 

feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of 

boulders. Take all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form 

of forms. So in the moon’s midwatches I pace the path 

above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing Elsinore’s 

tempting flood. 

The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past 

from here. Get back then by the Poolbeg road to the 

strand there. He climbed over the sedge and eely oarweeds 

and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a grike. 

A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. 

Before him the gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. Un coche 

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ensablé Louis Veuillot called Gautier’s prose. These heavy 

sands are language tide and wind have silted here. And 

these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren of weasel 

rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and 

stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout’s toys. Mind you don’t 

get one bang on the ear. I’m the bloody well gigant rolls 

all them bloody well boulders, bones for my 

steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz an 

Iridzman. 

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the 

sweep of sand. Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his 

liberty. You will not be master of others or their slave. I 

have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away, walking 

shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The 

two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. 

Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to 

them. Who? 

Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of 

prey, their bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten 

pewter surf. Dane vikings, torcs of tomahawks aglitter on 

their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of gold. A 

school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting, 

hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving 

cagework city a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with 

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flayers’ knives, running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery 

whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughters. Their blood is 

in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among them on the 

frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering 

resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me. 

The dog’s bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. 

Dog of my enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed 

about.  Terribilia meditans. A primrose doublet, fortune’s 

knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you pining, the 

bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The 

Bruce’s brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin 

Warbeck, York’s false scion, in breeches of silk of 

whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert Simnel, 

with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All 

kings’ sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved 

men from drowning and you shake at a cur’s yelping. But 

the courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were 

in their own house. House of ... We don’t want any of 

your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? 

A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. Natürlich, put there for 

you. Would you or would you not? The man that was 

drowned nine days ago off Maiden’s rock. They are 

waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want 

to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold 

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soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at 

Clongowes. Can’t see! Who’s behind me? Out quickly, 

quickly! Do you see the tide flowing quickly in on all 

sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly, 

shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his 

life still to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His 

human eyes scream to me out of horror of his death. I ... 

With him together down ... I could not save her. Waters: 

bitter death: lost. 

A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I 

bet. 

Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, 

trotting, sniffing on all sides. Looking for something lost in 

a past life. Suddenly he made off like a bounding hare, ears 

flung back, chasing the shadow of a lowskimming gull. 

The man’s shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He 

turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling 

shanks. On a field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, 

unattired. At the lacefringe of the tide he halted with stiff 

forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at 

the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented towards 

his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, 

breaking, plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and 

waves. 

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