It is one of his best poems, and contains some of the most beautiful lines of alliterative verse written in the 20th century. When we start to read this poem, we instantly drop from time and space, and enter that world beloved of the Romantics, halfway between allegory and dream. A mariner is shipwrecked on a nameless island. But she complains of a sorceror who has stolen half the island from her sway, who offers a drink that turns all living things to stone. He accepts, and proceeds across the island.
Events move with a strange unpredictability, involving a dwarf, a flute, and several metamorphoses.
The following sample illustrates the rhythmic beauty that Lewis can achieve. The stir at our stern, and the strong cleaving Of the throbbing prow. As the book tells us, Walls of water, and a way between Were reared and rose at the Red Sea ford, On either hand, when Israel came Out of Egypt to their own country.