Sark Poetry & Prose
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Pour yourself a cup of tea and enjoy this collection of short writings about Sark, from as early as the 1800s to present day.
Sark
by Shaun Cronick
A little bit of Heaven,
Fell from the sky one day.
It nestled in the Channel,
Not many miles away.
And when the angels found it,
It looked so sweet and fair.
They all agreed to leave it,
For it was so peaceful there.
Whatever shall we call it?
They all did loudly lark.
Then the wisest one spoke softly,
We'll simply call it Sark.
Sark
by John Oxenham
Pearl Iridescent! Pearl of the sea!
Shimmering, glimmering Pearl of the sea!
White in the sun-flecked Silver Sea,
White in the moon-decked Silver Sea,
White in the wrath of the Silver Sea,--
Pearl of the Silver Sea!
Lapped in the smile of the Silver Sea,
Ringed in the foam of the Silver Sea,
Glamoured in mists of the Silver Sea,--
Pearl of the Silver Sea!
Glancing and glimmering under the sun.
Jewel and casket all in one,
Joy supreme of the sun's day dream,
Soft in the gleam of the golden beam,--
Pearl of the Silver Sea!
Splendour of Hope in the rising sun,
Glory of Love in the noonday sun,
Wonder of Faith in the setting sun,--
Pearl of the Silver Sea!
Gaunt and grim to the outer world,
Jewel and casket all impearled
With the kiss of the Silver Sea!--
With the flying kiss of the Silver Sea,
With the long sweet kiss of the Silver Sea,
With the rainbow kiss of the Silver Sea,--
Pearl of the Silver Sea!
And oh the sight,--the wonderful sight,
When calm and white, in the mystic light
Of her quivering pathway, broad and bright,
The Queen of the Night, in silver dight,
Sails over the Silver Sea!
Wherever I go, and wherever I be,
The joy and the longing are there with me,--
The gleam and the glamour come back to me,--
In a mystical rapture there comes to me,
The call of the Silver Sea!
As needle to pole is my heart to thee,
Pearl of the Silver Sea!
Butterflies and Swallows
by Tracey Hannah
Butterflies and swallows flew all around,
Twas so very peaceful and only the sound of the occasional ring of a bicycle bell,
Magical "Sark Island" so calm we could tell,
That nothing was rushed here time had stood still,
As the goats sat happily on top of the hill,
The coastline below us rugged and untouched,
The visitors large suitcase what a stroke of luck,
That a tractor on standby could drop it at the ferry,
And you too if walking was hard cause you were merry,
You'd sat in the sun a cider or too,
No rushing about or a hundred jobs to do,
Just an island of treasures so much for you to see,
I'd recommend you go as you'll love it like me,
And my friend Alee who came here to walk,
We shopped and we ate we explored and we talked,
Breathing the fresh air on this beautiful day,
At night the sky was dark but the stars came out to play,
A tapestry up above us magical and amazing,
A trip to Sark Island the break you are craving,
Away from cars and busy roads your life fast and quick,
You swam in the sea such a therapeutic dip,,
So pay SARK a visit make a memory or two,
Bring a friend or family member to share it with you
On the Island of Sark
by Jennifer Barber
You, gorse: I slow my steps
around the thorns you bare to take
the blood of the unaware.
You put forth your yellow blooms
next to a footbridge strung
between two cliffs — a dizzying drop.
People arrive on the ferry. Others depart.
What’s peril for us is easy for you:
you thrive in a gale-force wind;
you can’t be shipwrecked or drowned.
You scrawl your name in places
only the gulls know how to patrol.
Sure as a god of your right to exist,
you watch the daylong changes in the tide.
In Sark
by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Abreast and ahead of the sea is a crag's front cloven asunder
With strong sea-breach and with wasting of winds whence terror is shed
As a shadow of death from the wings of the darkness on waters that thunder
Abreast and ahead.
At its edge is a sepulchre hollowed and hewn for a lone man's bed,
Propped open with rock and agape on the sky and the sea thereunder,
But roofed and walled in well from the wrath of them slept its dead.
Here might not a man drink rapture of rest, or delight above wonder,
Beholding, a soul disembodied, the days and the nights that fled,
With splendour and sound of the tempest around and above him and under,
Abreast and ahead?
Sark: An Island Journal
by Morgan Farley
I want to give you Sark but I can’t do it in words. I can’t tell you what the island is in itself, elementally—a table of rock thrust up from the floor of the Atlantic, a knuckle poking out of the Channel’s sleeve; a fragment of Normandy whittled away by wind and rain, hollowed out by hungry waves and tides, its tableland riddled with sinkholes, its cliffs sliding into the sea, its isthmus narrowing to a knife edge that will finally break in two. And the extravagant flowering that surges from all this erosion—sea pinks and white campion blooming from bare granite, bluebells pooling like water in the low places, gorse catching fire on the steep cotils—who can explain it?
I only know I came back here at sixty to immerse myself in all that wearing down and springing forth, all that crumbling away and blossoming, the two joined as if they were one gesture. I want to fit my body into the battered rocks of the Gouliot headland and sit there in the wind and rain until my atoms enter the wedding dance of granite and campion. I want my own cliffs to be flowering when they fall into the sea.
Change
by Nala from Sark School
Change is listening to animals squawking.
Change is watching the world spinning.
Change is looking at dolphins diving.
Change is hearing the music and chants of children.
Change is learning from books.
Change is believing in the moon and stars.
Change is feeling as strong as a crashing wave.
A trip to Sark
An extract from Eliza Cook’s Journal
ONE fine afternoon towards the end of July, 1851, we embarked in the Guernsey roadstead, on board the Native, a small cutter, plying between the two islands, and fulfilling the double mission of packet-boat and trader.
We had heard so much concerning the grandeur of the Sark scenery—had, moreover, during our stay in Guernsey so frequently admired its bold line of coast, that we determined on seeing with our own eyes these hidden treasures before leaving the Channel Islands.
The approach to Sark is very grand, an almost insurmountable barrier of rocks, rising between 200 and 400 feet perpendicularly from the sea, and giving it the appearance of some huge castle floating along the deep. The eastern side is defended by submarine shelves of rocks running out in some places a mile from land, and producing great overflows and eddies, and so strongly fortified is it by nature, that a handful of men, with the requisite works, would amply secure it from all attempts at invasion.
We now rounded the northern point of the island, and looked somewhat anxiously amidst the craggy precipices for a landing-place, as nothing in the shape of a harbour was to be seen. At length, however, the passengers began to bestir themselves; the anchor was dropped, a boat or two pulled alongside, and in a short time our entire party were safely landed on a pebbly beach, shut in from the land by inaccessible cliffs.
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