Sailing Round Cape Horn Poem by Biswajit Basu

In Chile, the ice-age carved out a chequered coast,
Its southern tip touching Antarctica-almost,
A wondrous land, right down to the Cape,
Bleak seas and the hills, in fact the entire landscape.
Capricious weather of severe extreme,
With the fury of storms with icy calms between,
Explored first by Magellan five hundred years past,
Whipstaff in hand steadfast by the mast.

Hills rise sharp from the waters so deep,
On tops of which lazy clouds do sleep,
In wispy strands below each peak,
Hovering softly and seductively meek.
Dressed in grey are the straits and creek,
Incessant storms lash this land so bleak.
What hoary tales do these silent hills hide
Of peoples and tribes that have long since died?

Through these craggy hills southward our ship sails forth,
Leaving sunny climes and placid seas to the north,
Once capriciously buffeted in a storm's fearsome hold,
Then suddenly becalmed in a lake snowy and cold.
Rivers of ice still course through this vale,
Glaciers reach the sea carrying rocks and shale,
As the morning sun's suffused ethereal glow,
Illuminates to bright saffron, a white ice-floe.
On the glacier's face where it breaks to the sea,
Ripples of azure blue-after ten millennia set free.
Sailing onward, south of the Chilean fjords,
Mountains of waves rushing at us in hordes,
The waves so high and fearsome grown,
Big and deep in the storm-wind blown.

Thus rose the sea in towering crests,
White foam spilling from its beastly jaw,
As the ship lurched into its murky maw,
Medusa's invitation to her fatal breasts.
Reaching, at last, haven Punto Arenas,
Where the wind slashed at us like a pack of hyenas.
Ropes strung on the town's footpath,
Helped us pull against the winds' furious wrath.

Then came the calm as swift as the tempest did,
And under us the chastened sea gently slid,
The ship rode on, now its head held high,
Once again we could hear the seagulls cry.
Bounteous calm, where were you all these days,
When we passed through that veritable island maze?
Behind now were the storms so fierce,
And those days of seasickness and of tears.


Now the fluffy cotton clouds above the azure horizon line,
Smilingly gaze on those waves so gracefully undulating,
The sun's rays reflecting flecks from its burnished spine,
Storm clouds in the distant sky abating,
As our bows, now in the Atlantic and headed due north,
Sliced through the sea foam whence diadems burst forth.

I saw the shimmering moonbeam upon the rippled ocean,
I saw the silver-tinged cloud on the horizon so low,
I saw the blue mist over Sugar Loaf mountain,
Safe at haven, at long last, in Rio de Janeiro.