We ran aground on an island,
In the eye of a hurricane,
The wind was swirling around us,
As loud as a runaway train,
A dozen people had floated up
****** off the deck of the ship,
Lost forever in giant seas
At the height of our pleasure trip.

The ship was battered and spun around
Like a toy in the hands of a boy,
This giant behemoth of the seas
Tossed round like a tinker toy.
We heard it grind on the outer reef
Then be driven right up to the beach,
It slowly toppled, onto its side
With the lifeboats out of reach.

We hid inside till the storm was spent
Then cautiously went ashore,
There must have been a hundred of us,
But there had been hundreds more,
Some drowned in the lower cabins
When the sides of the ship were breached,
And others died, fell over the side
As the priest of the ship had preached.

But there was no god in the heavens,
Just the mighty god of the storm,
We were soaked, and so dishevelled,
Just trying to keep us warm,
So we sheltered in a grove of trees
That had swayed, but still they stood,
While the men went through the fallen trees
Gathering firewood.

It was night before we knew it,
There had been torrential rain,
The many fires that we had lit
Were lit, and lit again,
We managed a palm frond shelter
To protect us from the breeze,
But people were dying, by the score
With old men on their knees.

If only the ship had stayed upright
We could treat it like a shack,
But once we found we were on the ground
There was no way to climb back,
And then at night we were all in fright
When we heard a roar, so bold,
Like a raging beast in the further trees
That it made our blood run cold.

People were screaming in the dark
On the outskirts of the crowd,
And sounds of ripping, and gnashing teeth
In the darkness were so loud,
The morning showed us the grisly truth
There were pieces everywhere,
Whatever it was, and to our cost
They’d been sounds of rip and tear.

That only leaves a dozen of us
So I cast this into the sea,
A scrawl in a tiny bottle in
The hopes that you’ll set us free.
We take it in turns to keep a watch
For the monster of this shore,
On this tiny little island that
Has never been mapped before.

David Lewis Paget