The Coral Reef - Vivian Virtue

The sun discovers, probing the shingling sea,

A lurking down in the coral woods below

That merge, through hollows where the warm flow,

With bloom-like beast and flower pulsating free.

And all that the brine gives colour-anemone,

Moss, and dishevelled week, andn schinus, glow

Rich-patterned, chequoring with indigo

The wrinkled roots of the madrepare's pale tree.

In splendid mail dimming the living tints

A monstrous figure against the branching glints,

Warding the limpid gloom with indolent sweep;

Then, flashing suddenly a phosphoront fin

Kindles the crystal depths with exquisite thin

Fires that in gold and pearl and emerald leap.

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Vivian Lancaster Virtue (1911 - 1998) Jamaica

Source: Anthology of the Poetry of the West Indies, chosen and edited by W. Adolphe Roberts and Wycliffe Bennett, c. 1950