What are these ramparts thrusting out into the sea?
Here where the yielding sand is all there is
To meet the waves,
Suddenly we see these giant rocks
Piled against the ocean’s power.
Starting deep within the bay
They wall the channel’s rim until they end
Far out where combers burst
In cataracts of spray.
How can we think our works will stand
Against this watery waste?
Yet here the jetties are, a century beyond their making,
Still shaping the shapeless land,
Still defying the waves breaking.
