The Coast at Grand Isle

The land develops, at its end,
This flatness men cease to defend.

No fill restores, nor sea-wall guards,
Bare, ebbing sand no life retards,

That measures, on the double gray
Of sky and gulf, the space we stay

And is the land we occupy.
Horizon dark beyond our sky,

Hurricane strong beyond our strength,
When you subject us, when at length

We scoop in sand the flooded grave,
We learn what false recourse men have

With death-who, into silt dispersed,
Ebb with the tide, and are reversed.