Poem: A Lost Sailor’s Remorse

This week’s Poet’s Corner contribution is from Calum Hines.

Apr 24, 2024, updated Mar 18, 2025
Photo: Kseniya Budko / Pexels
Photo: Kseniya Budko / Pexels

A Lost Sailor’s Remorse

Here I rest with sailors plenty,
The bottom of the ocean, the age of twenty;
A service to a country, I knew and loved,
The ultimate price, I paid in blood.

I’m lost at sea, beneath the waves,
A bitter end, a watery grave.
For I was never meant to live past twenty;
Now at rest, with sailors plenty.

For the seas I sailed encase my tomb,
In a watery grave I lay at rest;
From the war-torn trenches I remained free,
No soaking mud, nor shells that scream,
I remain on watch, forever at sea.
There shall be no welcome home, no marching band,
My family left, with a sole telegram;
A sense of duty made me fight,
To leave my home and lose my life;
For one last time, I left the pier,
Never to return, no future years.
Forever on patrol, yet finally free,
The lads and I, succumbed to the sea;
A life cut short, but a life well spent,
My time is up, this is my end;
Crashing waves and the ocean blue,

This is my time, adieu.

Calum Hines, born in Tasmania and living variously around Australia, currently resides in the Swan Coastal Plain region of Western Australia. With an interest in English since his school days, he enjoys the writing of both poems and short stories, particularly as ideas come to him on work trips and flights.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.