Hook at Eton
What drove him from the schoolyard to the mast?
Did he dream as all boys, of irrepressible instinct,
Wild & bloody cut-loose on the lawless sea?
Was he a Huck adrift,
evading the adult world he came to embody?

Had once his feet been fleet & light
of spirit, laughter in song?
His voice channels a child echoing rote;
In reproachful tones he chastises form,
The somber bass having outgrown his words.