Netherfields

Four sails of the seas
To navigate a dry-dock vessel,
Square and stationary
To turn the air to Dutch advantage.

But at last the dyke has burst: derelict
Stands the house of industry;
Departed, the boy who stopped the hole with his finger
To save the flatlands dry.

Haggard swing the great torn sails,
A dead man’s drift propels them now.
Rotted wheels collapsing in neglect,
Sea hissing its seeping victory.

Waters rise greedily to swallow the stone walls,
No-one to keep it from crumbling now.
As nether succumbs to upper storey,
So is the baker, the quaker, consumed.