Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/120
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The Ship and the Sea.
To South and East and North the screws are singing,
So steadily and tunefully and slow,
But on the Western Track they thunder, flinging
Their wake afoam, and by their roar and ringing—
By laughter sweet, deep in my heart, I know
That down that Red West Road, with big screws swinging,
Some day I’ll go.
So steadily and tunefully and slow,
But on the Western Track they thunder, flinging
Their wake afoam, and by their roar and ringing—
By laughter sweet, deep in my heart, I know
That down that Red West Road, with big screws swinging,
Some day I’ll go.
XLVIII.
The Ship and the Sea.
Day after day, thro’ following night on night,
Whether ’twixt Blue and Blue, amid gray calm,
Tempest, or chill disconsolating fog—
Still thro’ void air, ’neath one continuing dome
Of mute enormous sky—o’er plain on plain
Of lonely, stark, uninterrupted sea—
From circle to repeated circle of
Mere space for ever changing, aye unchanged:
Voyages on her solitary way
The strong seaworthy ship.
Whether ’twixt Blue and Blue, amid gray calm,
Tempest, or chill disconsolating fog—
Still thro’ void air, ’neath one continuing dome
Of mute enormous sky—o’er plain on plain
Of lonely, stark, uninterrupted sea—
From circle to repeated circle of
Mere space for ever changing, aye unchanged:
Voyages on her solitary way
The strong seaworthy ship.
And she informs that void. The solitude
She peoples, and to all that blank gives point.
Her single presence wakes as to an aim,
Touches, as tho’ to sense, the occupants
Of that insensate world. The leashless waves
Race at her side and follow at her heel:
The virgin and clean air dwells in her sails,
And sea-birds, none know whence, sudden appearing,
She peoples, and to all that blank gives point.
Her single presence wakes as to an aim,
Touches, as tho’ to sense, the occupants
Of that insensate world. The leashless waves
Race at her side and follow at her heel:
The virgin and clean air dwells in her sails,
And sea-birds, none know whence, sudden appearing,