THE CRUISE OF THE FLEET.
The children are down by the shallows at play— They are Bailing their fleet in the ripple aud foam, How Blight is the current that bears it away, How light is the zephyr that hastens sfc home. There are three curly heads all alert for the race I There are b!x dimpled knees in the sun and the Band, And, oh, what a shout, what a fervent embrace, When the frail little shallop comes safely to land 1 Their father's a sailor who rides on the main, He rides in a vessel that laughs to the breeze ; Yet vain are her pinions in tempeßt and rain, And weak is the arm that must strive with the seas. Oh, what are his perils by storm and by flood— The cloud in the azure, the rift in the blueBut the challenge of danger that kindles the blood As it threatens the fleet of that merry-voiced crew ? We venture our barks to the buffets of fate While the promise of childhood is dear and divine. Ana many a craft that we trust with our freight Is split on a pebble and lost in the brineYet happy are we when our hopes have been tried, And the voice of the future is merged in the past, If but one of the ships that we launched to the tide Coraeß in with her cargo in safety at last. —Dora Eeade Goodale.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 1890, 10 February 1888, Page 35
Word Count
241THE CRUISE OF THE FLEET. Otago Witness, Issue 1890, 10 February 1888, Page 35
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