I spied a mighty albatross
Blue-eyed as coral stone
With heavenly wings borne like a cross
Adrift aloft alone
A speckled snow-capped mountain crown
Adorned the canopy
Upon her white quill-feathered gown
Explorer of the sea

No wonderland of wintry ice
Has thawed unto her touch
Nor sand-annointed paradise
Played harbour to her clutch
The shimmered sun and shadowed moon
Are beacons born to be
Her rooftop lights through livelong flights
Explorer of the sea

What maid foresworn to solitude
And shackled by her chains
Has tasted of a servitude
And dreamt not of the reins?
Imprisoned thus each land-lorn day
By neither lock nor key
How must your beaten heart dismay
Explorer of the sea?

As time the drifter slinks away
Upon an ebbing tide
I watch you fade from dusk-lit grey
To night’s eternal void
And left bereft and to atone
The deepest sins of me
I wonder who is more alone
Explorer of the sea?