With one consuming roar along the
The long wave claws and rakes the pebbles
To where its backwash and the next wave mingle,
A mounting arch of water
Against the tide the off-shore breezes blow.
Oh wind and water, this is Felixstowe.
In winter when the sea winds chill and
Than those of summer, all their cold
Full on the gimcrack attic of the
Where I am lodging off the Orwell Road,
I put my final shilling in the
And only make my loneliness completer.
In eighteen ninety-four when we were founded,
Counting our Reverend Mother we were six,
How full of hope we were and prayer-surrounded"The Little Sisters of the Hanging Pyx".
We built our orphanage.
We built our school.
Now only I am left to keep the rule.
Here in the gardens of the Spa
Warm in the whisper of the summer sea,
The cushioned scabious, a deep vermillion,
With white pins stuck in it, looks up at meA sun-lit kingdom touched by
And so my memory of the winter dies.
Across the grass the poplar shades grow
And louder clang the waves along the coast.
The band packs up.
The evening breeze is
And all the world goes home to tea and toast.
I hurry past a cakeshop's tempting
Bound for the red brick twilight of St.
John's."Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising"Here where the white light burns with steady
Safe from the vain world's silly sympathising,
Safe with the love I was born to know,
Safe from the surging of the lonely
My heart finds rest, my heart finds rest in Thee.
