THE VOYAGER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21254, 6 August 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE VOYAGER

BY ELSIE K. MORTON

LIFE'S TREASURE SHIPS

i ears ago, wnen l was a very sinan girl, a younger brother and I were often taken by a kind father to Narrow Neck Beach. In the midst of our paddling and play there were long pauses, in which we three used to sit. beneath the pohutukawas round tlio cliffs by tlio old target, and watch the blue seas intently. Sometimes our watching was unrewarded; sometimes there would be the familiar smudge as of a sooty finger against the pale, clear sky far down on the horizon beyond the beacon; sometimes a big overseas steamer would come sauntering leisurely up the channel, or the Rose Casey fussing her way homo from Waiwera or Warkworth. It was all one to us—big ship, little ship, far ship or near ship—any one of them might be the long-looked-for, any day bring the great hour when Father's Ship would be coming home, " When my ship comes homo ..." How clearly I hear the quaint., old childhood promise sounding over the gulf of the years! Whenever I coaxed for a new dolly (there were so few new dolls in those days!) or one of tho boys wanted a new penknife, a pop-gun, the answer would be the same—" When my ship comes home " —and somehow it sounded so plausible,' with the blue seas and tho beach sands almost at our door, that wo really and truly believed in " the day," and watched each ship' romping home up Rangitoto Channel with the eager query on our lips, " Father, is this your ship?" When she came she would be full of treasure, piles and sacks of gold and silver, great cases full of wax-faced, blue-eyed dolls, paint-boxes, books, ericket balls, penknives, tops, marbles, barley-sugar sticks, and sugartopped cakes. . . But, alas! the good ship never came home; the father, now an old, old man, is still waiting, and even if his ship should come home at last, what cargo could she bring so joyous and sweet as those long-dead hopes and wistful longings ? A broken dream might she bring, memories of what-might-have-been, but nothing so precious as that which the years have taken. . .

The Ship of Good Hope And that is life, a Ship of Good Hope, reaching port oarly 'Or late, or coining home never at all, freighted with longing and desire, hope and aspiration, setting out bravely for lands unknown, for that far port beyond the uttermost horizon. And of all the ships of all the world that hare set out, never a one to come sailing back to tell of winds and 'tides, of stress and peril, rocks and currents, never a word of riches or reward to gladden the heart of the voyager who still braves the stormy seas! This voyaging of man, the oldest, the most hazardous, the most beautiful, the most heartbreaking epic of the human soul, has--inspired the writers and poets of all ages. The Preacher sang of it—and oh! how beautifully he sang! Listen to the lovely, poignant words that have come ringing down the ages in falling cadence like the last notes of a tolling bell: " Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. . . In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, when fear shall be in the way and desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long home. . . Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher bo broken at the fountain. . . Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God, who gave it. " The Voyage of Maeldune " Thousands of years have passed since the words were written, but they have come down to us with beauty undimmed. How many of our young people are being taught to seek the imperishable treasures o£ literature and poetry contained within the Book of Books? How many of them are even familiar with the masterpieces of modern poets? It seems to me I have never read anything more wonderful in its imagery, more stirring in theme and in its appeal to the imagination, more moving in the simplicity and beauty of its climax than Tennyson's great poem, " The Voyage of Maeldune." It was not until school years were long past, and I had forgotten completely the dreary stuff with which my eager brain had been crammed, that I came to know the story of great Maeldune, the Voyager, who set out with his nobles to strike dead the man who had slain his father. First, they came to the Silent Isle, where a silent ocean broke on a silent shore, and then they came to the Is o of Shouting, and tho crying of the wild birds that stirred the hearts of the crew to madness and fighting, Ihen the Isle of Flowers, " and the topmost spire of the mountain was lilies in lieu of snow, and the whole isle-side swept like a torrent of gems from the sky to the blue of tho sea." Past the Isle of Fruits and the terrible Isle of Fire sailed Maeldune, over waters clearer than air, and Low down in a rainbow deep, Silent palaces, quiet fields of eternal sleep! In the Bounteous Isles the voyagers " chanted the triumphs of Finn and tho glories of fairy kings," and sailed on to the Isle of Witches, set in stormy red skies of desire, and then the passion of battle fell on them, and tho one half slew tho other before they sailed away to tho Isle of a Saint, whoso voico was low, as from other worlds—"Oh, Maeldune, lot be this purpose of Remember tho words of the Lord when Pie told us, ' Vengeance is mine!' " The Home-coming And so at last came Maeldune to journey's end, to the isle from which they started — And there on tlie shore was lie. The man that hud slain my father. I saw him. and let him be. Oil, weary was lof the travel, tlie trouble, the strife and the »>n When I landed again, with a tithe of my men, on tho Ihlo of Finn. A world's wandering, beauty, terror, gladness," temptation, lust, battle and death, and so at last to tho end of the voyage, f© forgiveness and peace. What an epitome of every voyager's wandering, what a blessed home-coming at the last! Ship of Good Hope, of Ambition, Love, Vain Desire, Renunciation, or Maeldune's dark ship of Wrath and Rovengo . . one by one they slip across the silent waters, down tho horizon, and so beyond man's ken. But we, like little children, stand on the shoreless sands, _ ever waiting,, ever watching, ever hoping that some day before our last sun sets we shall see our ship come sailing home to us, bearing the cargo of our heart's desire. And then at last the silent ocean bears us away to that far shore where our ships have made port, and await our coming, laden with eternal riches of reward, or battered and broken, bearing only the wreckage of earth's shattered dreams and unfulfilled desire.