A long, sandy beach, gulls, cold, on the west of the road. The water is brackish, salty, and undrinkable. The sun perpetually sets over the water and the port of lost ships. Everywhere, abandoned ships, lost ships from all eras of history, crashed and draped with seaweed in an ancient wharf. Every ship lost in the Bermuda Triangle is here, ships lost in wars and in storms and in the desolate wastes of the sea.
Dark the sea was: but I saw him,
One great head with goggle eyes,
Like a diabolic cherub
Flying in those fallen skies.
I have heard the hoarse deniers,
I have known the wordy wars;
I have seen a man, by shouting,
Seek to orphan all the stars.
I have seen a fool half-fashioned
Borrow from the heavens a tongue,
So to curse them more at leisure—
—And I trod him not as dung.
For I saw that finny goblin
Hidden in the abyss untrod;
And I knew there can be laughter
On the secret face of God.
Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,
Bring the age by reason fed!
(He that sitteth in the heavens,
‘He shall laugh’—the prophet said.)
—Gilbert Chesterton’s The Fish
