While The Gale Swept In Poem by Gert Strydom

(After Christina Rossetti)

While the gale swept in
he confronted her on the beach
and she climbed on rocks
just out of his reach.

He knelt on one leg
with the wind howling
with his voice
and begged for her hand

with the white beach sand
pelting her face
like sandpaper
and she denied him
shaking her head

telling him to find
someone else instead
as she had no feelings for him,
had already
other plans set in place.

His grandmother,
a sorceress,
blacker than the night
from somewhere in Africa
past the Nile
did cast her spells
from behind a flickering candle-light.

The sky went dark,
the tormented sea,
the howling wind
the raging waves
swept them away
like specs of sand

and to this day
no one know
what happened there
and to were they went.

[Reference: "Jessie Cameron" by Christina Rossetti.]