To a tropic reef - Hugh Fuller

Oh, murmuring reef

Changing while yet unchanged,

No earthly power can ‘ere erase

The jagged contours of your face;

Nor can the hand of futile man

Disrupt your sweet incessant song:

Oh, chattering reef, foam-capped you bear

Your craggy head up in the air.

Tempestuous seas around you rage

Their provocations to assuage

And angry seas around you swell

Like bound fiends from the depths of hell

While seagull, white and graceful sway—

Poised o'er your ageless head each day.

Did Christopher Columbus brave

Hear the loud warning your voice gave

As, standing on his gallant ship

He passed by on his questing trip?

Did Cortes and his hardy band

Sailing to Montezuma's land

Steer 'neath your sheltering-calm

Secure from some fierge tropic storm?

Oh murmuring reef,

Changing while yet unchanged,

I am content to see you lie

Serene beneath your tropic sky!

Your many secrets hold secure;

As long as Nature's hands endure

I would not wrest them from your breast

Nor seek to mar your happiness!

and ‘tho angry tempests blast

And stormy seas around you toss, 

‘Tho seasons change and we are gone,

Oh Tropic reef! Keep murmuriug on...

Oh Tropic reef! Keep murmuring on.

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Hugh Fuller (20th century) Belize

Source: Belizean Poets Belize National Library Service, date unknown but possiby 1977