Ballad of the Winter Sea

When I go down to the shore, the tide,

riding a chestnut mare, down to Old Brittany, 

where the salt and storm waves roar,

in the foam I see you, your charcoal ship ghostly.

 

Here in the herringbone sand,

where the ghost ship rides,

beyond the clams and the mussels,

beyond the bow of faceted skies.

 

My sea will rise and meet the sun,

like a woman from her grave,

her gold grave clothes all about her,

her spun linen like cathedral’s nave.

 

My sea, with her fine hair streaming,

in the salt and in the cool,

has grey eyes with wool brine tears,

terra-lithe, and terra’s pool.

 

She has risen from her slumber,

with an angry roar she cries,

for the ghost ship is her lost one,

and on All Hallows’ Eve he died.

 

Drowned below, under the breakers,

fallen to the bars of sand,

crew of the populace, harsh, grey-bearded,

guttural, they sank from land.

 

They would not see old Jupiter’s light,

they would not wake to Gregorian chant,

no longer would they hear her singing,

high and loyal to each sailing band. 

 

Her voice would echo in the morning’s fog,

as the moon sank and flower sun arose,

and the foghorn sounded weary,

while the Monterey Cypress bent like wind-blown rose.

 

Through the bays, and through the masthead,

sails rippling in the light, blow,

round about the harbours, men cupped their ears,

at foreign ports, with savage prose.

 

The fisherman’s spray against the window,

plaid curtain drawn back to see the view,

the 1800’s muntin panes spy low tide

by the French cottage drinking sea-dew.

 

Harvest kelp beds, sap the noon,

pass the poinsettia beds beside,

seabirds, with their wingspans draw me high,

with a walrus’ tusk and with a shell-comb, pull my hair back to the tide.

 

I was poet, I was inkwell’s calligraphic turn,

Noel’s glittering ages past,

before the tree, and before the hearth fire,

here I call you, rise from night, at last.

 

On snowy regal paper, my cranberry Christmas pen will sing,

lofty in the evergreen, my flaxen winter-wind will roam,

as the North star, mariner’s compass followed,

and call the sailor safely home.

 

At the sunset, at the first star,

men in love with the sea would rove,

to find the girl with the mahogany mane,

beside the fireplace of a fishermen’s cove.

—Emily Isaacson

Movie will premiere the evening of December 10, 2025: www.youtube.com/@wildlilypoetry

Critique:

“Ballad of the Winter Sea” is, at its heart, a meditation on longing, threshold places, and the sacred interplay between mortality and return. Set against the sweeping, solemn architecture of Mozart’s Requiem, the poem draws on centuries of maritime lore, Christian symbolism, and Romantic-era imagery to craft a narrative that moves with tidal cadence. The opening stanzas establish the sea not merely as a landscape but as a living presence: a liminal space where the boundary between the earthly and the eternal collapses. From the moment the speaker descends “to the shore… down to Old Brittany, / where the salt and storm waves roar,” the poem signals its mythic register—a geography where time folds and memory haunts the surf.

The sea becomes personified fully as Sophia, a feminine embodiment of nature, grief, and transcendence. Her emergence from the breakers—“like a woman from her grave, / her gold grave clothes all about her” —evokes both resurrection and ancient sea-goddess iconography. This dual symbolism situates her between Christian imagery and pagan maritime myth. She is at once the mournful widow of the drowned and the eternal mother of tides. Her “grey eyes with wool brine tears” and “fine hair streaming” further humanise the sea while maintaining its power and mystery; she is beautiful, formidable, and deeply wounded by loss. The ghost ship—becomes her absent beloved, a wandering soul who perished “on All Hallows’ Eve,” aligning his death with the veil-thin night between worlds.

The poem’s characterisation of the lost loved one is indirect but evocative. He exists primarily as a haunting: a charcoal silhouette in the foam, a ship that reappears in memory and myth. His crew—“harsh, grey-bearded, guttural”—conjures a 19th-century maritime world, tying the poem to historical seafaring cultures of Brittany, France, and the Pacific Coast. The references to Gregorian chant, old Jupiter’s light, All Hallows’ Eve, and “the 1800’s muntin panes” together construct a layered temporal atmosphere: part medieval, part Romantic-era, part Victorian Christmas. This chorus of eras creates a timeless world appropriate to Mozart’s sacred score, where centuries speak to each other like the overlapping movements of the Requiem.

Symbolically, the poem treats the sea as a repository of memory—a vast archive holding the grief of drowned sailors, the unresolved prayers of travellers, and the quiet hope of return. Sound imagery reinforces this: Sophia’s voice “echo[es] in the morning’s fog,” the foghorn is “weary,” and men in distant harbours “cup their ears,” as though listening for messages borne across continents. This reflects the narrative arc: Rufus and Sophia, separated across the globe, are nevertheless bound by sound, tide, and spirit. The sea becomes the narrator, the medium, and the bridge—her voice the thread that keeps the world stitched together.

The poem’s atmosphere shifts from elegiac to luminous as it progresses. Early stanzas dwell in storm, slumber, and mourning, but by stanza twelve the speaker reclaims their identity as poet: “I was poet, I was inkwell’s calligraphic turn… before the tree, and before the hearth fire.” This suggests a meta-narrative: the poet herself is both witness and participant in a lineage of storytellers who keep maritime memory alive. The Christmas imagery here is subtle but profound—Noël, evergreen, the North Star, and the mariner’s compass become symbols of divine guidance and homecoming. The Requiem’s themes of prayer, judgment, and deliverance resonate beneath every line, lending the poem a sacred stillness even in its stormiest moments.

Visually, Ballad of the Winter Sea is cinematic, providing rich material for a multimedia film. The poem offers sweeping seascapes (“Monterey Cypress bent like wind-blown rose”), intimate domestic glimpses (“plaid curtain drawn… French cottage drinking sea-dew”), and mythic actions (Sophia rising from her watery grave). These images move with a painterly sensibility reminiscent of Waterhouse or the maritime Romantics. The final stanza brings the saga home: men following the first star—like shepherds or sailors of old—walk toward a hearth, a girl “with the mahogany mane,” completing the cycle of wandering and return. It echoes both the Nativity journey and the archetypal sailor’s longing for safe harbour.

Ultimately, the poem weaves together myth, Christmas symbolism, maritime history, and spiritual longing into a unified narrative and tableau of separated lovers finding their way home through the guiding forces of nature and the divine. Set to Mozart’s Requiem, its movements of grief, yearning, revelation, and peace align beautifully with the emotional structure of the poem. “Ballad of the Winter Sea” becomes not only a story of Rufus and Sophia, but also a meditation on the human condition: our perennial desire to cross the gulfs between us, to rise from night toward light, and to be called safely home.

Generated by AI courtesy of WLI.