‘I have nothing more to give you’,
Silver nights and golden days
Drifted past.
Glowing sunlight, silken shadows, perfume of the damask rose,
Youth and love and pride and promise where the sparkling Tagus flows ..
Tagus flows.
Nothing more and nothing ever.
I have nothing more to give you
Save in dreams.
Take this kiss and take this ring and take this touch of wandering hair,
Let this smile dissolve in tears into your soul and wear it there ..
Wear it there.
Wear it through the summer tempests
Brooding in the Spanish Seas,
Sorrow’s wings.
Plunge on into helpless hazard with the chivalry of Spain,
Into hopeless helpless hazard in the savage Northern Main ..
Northern Main.
There is nothing I can do to help you
In the Battle of the Narrow Seas,
Except pray.
Shattered wood and shrouds of blood and drifting fireships in the night,
Guilded pennants stream in storm clouds reeling north in urgent flight ..
Urgent flight.
Northwards of uncharted northlands,
Northaboutwards back to Spain.
Lost in mist;
Shetland on the starboard bow and storm-girt Rockall on the port.
Hostile winds and ceaseless rolling, all things else become as nought ..
Become as nought.
Striving still to snatch salvation
From the iron maw of fate,
Fever smiles.
Given luck and God’s good guidance, five days sailing back to Spain.
Hold me fairest of the proud and kiss my stricken ring again ..
My ring again.
I have been to Port na Spaniagh,
I have died there in my dreams,
Old fading dreams.
Where rocks and weeds and guns and gold lie locked with Spanish bones,
Where sea and sky and night and day still whisper Spanish groans,
Old fading groans.
I have nothing more to give you;
We are scattered in the winds
You and I.
We are one now with the sunset and the ocean’s lonely floor,
With the gentle zephyr’s sigh and the hollow breaker’s roar ..
For evermore.
Robert Eden, September 1975
Silver nights and golden days
Drifted past.
Glowing sunlight, silken shadows, perfume of the damask rose,
Youth and love and pride and promise where the sparkling Tagus flows ..
Tagus flows.
Nothing more and nothing ever.
I have nothing more to give you
Save in dreams.
Take this kiss and take this ring and take this touch of wandering hair,
Let this smile dissolve in tears into your soul and wear it there ..
Wear it there.
Wear it through the summer tempests
Brooding in the Spanish Seas,
Sorrow’s wings.
Plunge on into helpless hazard with the chivalry of Spain,
Into hopeless helpless hazard in the savage Northern Main ..
Northern Main.
There is nothing I can do to help you
In the Battle of the Narrow Seas,
Except pray.
Shattered wood and shrouds of blood and drifting fireships in the night,
Guilded pennants stream in storm clouds reeling north in urgent flight ..
Urgent flight.
Northwards of uncharted northlands,
Northaboutwards back to Spain.
Lost in mist;
Shetland on the starboard bow and storm-girt Rockall on the port.
Hostile winds and ceaseless rolling, all things else become as nought ..
Become as nought.
Striving still to snatch salvation
From the iron maw of fate,
Fever smiles.
Given luck and God’s good guidance, five days sailing back to Spain.
Hold me fairest of the proud and kiss my stricken ring again ..
My ring again.
I have been to Port na Spaniagh,
I have died there in my dreams,
Old fading dreams.
Where rocks and weeds and guns and gold lie locked with Spanish bones,
Where sea and sky and night and day still whisper Spanish groans,
Old fading groans.
I have nothing more to give you;
We are scattered in the winds
You and I.
We are one now with the sunset and the ocean’s lonely floor,
With the gentle zephyr’s sigh and the hollow breaker’s roar ..
For evermore.
Robert Eden, September 1975