A Channel Passage

by Rupert Brooke — a poem card from Justes Mots

Rupert Brooke's witty, irreverent poem captures a speaker battling seasickness while being tortured by thoughts of an estranged lover. The poem presents a darkly comic choice between physical nausea and emotional anguish, using crude bodily humor to express the intensity of love-sick suffering. It subverts romantic convention by frankly depicting desire's painful grip alongside genuine physical distress.

The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick
My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew
I must think hard of something, or be sick;
And could think hard of only one thing, YOU!
You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!
And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.
Now there's a choice, heartache or tortured liver!
A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!…

Themes: sympathy · grief · love · reflection