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Drowned Man
Drowned Man - Fiona Sampson
The British Council has supported these recordings as part of the Shakespeare Lives in 2016 programme celebrating the work of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death.
Drowned Man
See how they sleep first he turns
away and then she turns
after him or now she turns
her back and he follows
rolled by an imperative
deeper than sleep
he rolls over like a wave
that turns itself over
sleepily with the sea’s deep
breathing with its rhythm
pulsing far out from land pulsing far
down in the dark
where creatures not yet formed are forming
where like half made beasts
his dreams swim among hers where
she hears his breathing far
above her nearer to the light
nearer to the white-topped
waves the white-peaked sheets his arm
thrown across her now
as she floats upward drawing him
out of deep tides crossing
their legs once more and morning lies
motionless to the horizon.
from On Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A Poets’ Celebration edited by Hannah Crawforth & Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Bloomsbury, 2016), © Fiona Sampson 2016, used by permission of the author