I spent yesterday evening musing over my favourite dVerse prompt – the Quadrille. Lilian had suggested we weave the word sunrise (or a derivative) into a piece of poesy (John Clare’s word) of exactly 44 words.

Several hours later, having interrogated William Blake, the motion of the Earth and Sun, and my own anomalous behaviour as a bohemian word-slinger, I went to bed, disgruntled.

Thanks to the powers that ply in the sleeping brain, I woke up refreshed enough to adventure a full length poem, forgetting the sunrise altogether until the word snook in. (I was over five hours late for the event, though: 0420 British Summer Time today in Brora, Scotland)

I’m providing the firstfruits at the end, but here is the slimmed-down quadrille, which, as a poem, is rather shallow… you decide.


shallow

Before I die, I want to swim 

far out in ocean's swarthy deep:

"Shallow Brown" the shanty played, 

worked through my muse when I'm asleep.

When sunrise stirs, you're at my side:

a hollow where the music died -

lament, wail, and woe betide!


© Kathy Labrum McVittie 3 June 2025

Here’s the first, 75-word, version. It contains allusions (can you find them?) to a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, a hymn, and of course the folk shanty Shallow Brown, about which you can read here.

I first came across Shallow Brown in a BBC Prom concert, in a version for baritone and orchestra by Percy Grainger. Happy hunting and deep internet fishing.

deep /shallow 

Before I die, I want to swim out in the ocean's swarthy deep:

"Shallow Brown" the music played, worked through my muse when I'm asleep

Come sunrise, stir - you at my side, or hollow where you have awoken -

a belly-smile at soul-exchange, a heart expanse at what was spoken;

not silence, but a quietude; still keening grief and also laughter:

the singing never will be done, with black and white birds flying after


© Kathy Labrum McVittie 3 June 2025