A TOMB OF THE DEEP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2924, 30 March 1910, Page 88

A TOMB OF THE DEEP.

[The Waratah has been missing many months. Some cling to the hope that she may still bs afloat. Ido not. I only mourn for the many who were strangers and the one who was friend.]'

The blush of dawn floods all the eastern, sky In glowing waves of light that flow and die; The green wave .glances on its bosom cold Slow-changing shades - of deep blood-tinted gold, One moment, then, far o'er the trembling deep, Fierce Phoebus rises from, his'nightly sleep, And casts out to the west, more swift than sight, From wave to wave, a bridge of golden light. My path winds 'long a rugged cliff, just o'er The shattered wave—a path oft trod before. Here, when the morn was young, I oft would stray; Here feel the pulse grow swift in baby day; Here, undisturbed, view the reckless wave, With foaming lips charge to its rocky grave. I came —not that these beauties gave me

cheer, — It was m sadness that I wandered here! I came as comes the mourner to the cross Which marks his deepest, sorest earthly loss; For here I gaz'd upon the restless tomb Of one I knew—deep in the ocean's gloom,— One less than lover, yet more than a friend, For common friendship at the grave doth end; And here those ties still trebly bound my heart, By time uneas'd, of sorrow still a part.

It seem'd a duty that I should come here And view in silent reverence his bier; • Some pow'r—l know not what —'twas more than will— Each dawning drew me to my worship still. 'Twas thus this morn my spirit, ruled by The mystic pow'r I could no more deny, Had brought me, weary, stumbling to this path " Where ocean storms were wont to vent their wrath. . . . My heart is strangely mov'd—not as of yore,— My ear finds not the music of the shore;

A feeling strange sweeps over me —sans pain,— Sweeps through my limbs, my heart, my brain. The scene is chang'd, swift changed, in the Nor span of dark, immeasurable night! Swift fades the sun, the earth, the heaving deep, The strongest wave is stricken in its leap. They flash, they fade —to nothingness tbey fly!

And, lo! a changed scene now greets my eye, I -stand not on the cliff, the breakers near, But 'mid the bustle of a crowded pier.

A thousand faces are about me prest— The mother, with her babe warm on _her breast; The father, with the head of hoary age; The youth, strong in young manhood's sweetest age. They gaze upwards; I follow with my eyes, And there a mighty ship before me lies. Her gangways stretch out to the shore, And humans to her decks in hundreds pour! The tottering father, cramp'd and bent with years; • 1 The tender maiden, sweet with parting tears; The mother, stumbling up in'•nervous haste; The youth who longs the promised land to taste— - The old, the young, the sad, the stern, the gay, 'Till half the panting throng has pass d away. 1 One glance—a glance that holds the soul • a- while— _ ' The naked heart shorn of its 'custom'd guile,— One glance, and heart has melted into heart; A last long grip of hands,, a sigh—they part. Keen eyes read love in eyes ne'er read before. And lips meet lips as ne'er they met of yore. So does sad parting tear aside the veil, — All semblance at the farewell hour must fail. False friendship trembles in his faithless hand, And shame—a shame he cannot understand — Pours the swift flush out o'er his lowered brow, And shows the friend—a friend he did not know. I stand. The* gangway swings from off the pier; A bush, a calm, comes o'er the mortals here. The vessel moves. . . - She slowly glides away. . . . A heaving crowd around me now does sway. They cheer—again—again; and in their glee They rise and fall like waves along the sea. From ship and pier soft 'kerchiefs gaily wave,- . " ~, The same that lately love's sad tears did. lave. ... The distance gros—the ship is lost to view, t» view, And that great throng has dwindled to a few. I stand at last alone, yet not alone, For there's a spirit here that's not my own. The day has pass'd, and fades in ghostly • light To'darkness deeper than an earthly night. A change, a wondrous change, comes o'er the scene; I look on that which was or may have been: A stormy night stretch r d out upon the deep, Nor broken by the billows' frothy leap, Nor penetrable to our mortal eyes. Yet, lo! I see, in frozen, dumb surprise, As tho' 'twere day, the ocean's raging breast, Each abyss and each billow's lashing crest; A bruised ship roll o'er her watery grave, Shorn of her helm, at mercy of the wave. • I hear a cry, a cry of human fear; I look. It is the ship that left the pier. • The hungry waves sweep o'er her shattered deck — ■ Alas! e'en now it seem 3 she is a wreck. No, no! Again she plunges onward, free; Like some live thing she struggles in the sea — Here ficrhtihg for her life against the wave, • Here fleeing from the deep, cold ocean's grave. A ciy, an awful cry, comes down the gale, A cry of pain, of fear—a woman's wail. Out through the flying, whirling mist I see A hundred faces paled in agony; A hundred souls who gaze upon the deep That soon a thousand fathoms o'er inlay creep; , A hundred hearts that beat in fear as one, A hundred hearts that feel their race is run. Nor youth, nor age finds shelter from the £ gale, But face their fate fast lashed to the rail. The storm grows fiercer, swifter in its flight. The thunder bellows deeper thro' the night! I see the lightning course across the sky In swift red spurts of flame that flash and die; I hear again the moan of doomed souls, As wilder now the wounded vessel rolls.

I see the mother clasp her loved child—" 'She to its death, alas! is reconciled; Sh© fiercely strains it to her frozen breast, Where now no more a living babe shall rest. Alas, for tottering age and woman frail! Can they not hojie some mercy from the gale? ~~i|Can feeble limbs not find some pity here? sweet, tender maids net hope a softer bier? \

The lips of some to earnest prayer are lent— They call on God to calm His element. 'T,is vain, for here, 'twould seem, there is no

G od; 'Tis vain, for Death's gaunt angels are

abroad. I see the face of one that I had known, I hear a. name, a name that is my own; He lifts his hands, his bleeding hands, to

me, E'en as a billow sweeps him to the sea. Before me, nigh, he struggles to his grave, Nor hand, alas! can I stretch forth to save. The ship is doom'd, but bravely struggles on, Tho' most of those who lived to death have

gone. She flounders in a valley of tjae deep, E'en as a mountain sea o'er her doth leap, Bow'd by the storm the dying ship does

heel, , The mountain falls. ... I see arise—hex-

keel. She pauses there one moment in the night, Then, heaving, sinks, no more to grace the

light. . Farewell, brave hearts, /-farewell, thou noble

dead! Thy tomb shall be the deep blue ocean s bed; Some coral-deck'd cavern of the deepest blue, Where ye shall sway in everlasting sleep; Thy requiem 'long the cavern floor shall

steal In ripp'ling notes, low, sweet, and funereal I wake, I live, my spirit rules again Its flesh abode, its domicile of pain.

I look not on the anger of a storm, But a wide-rolling ocean, blue and warm;' A stretch of peaceful, golden sand below, Where baby waves in music ebb and flow. How can I reconcile, O peaceful wave! Thee with my vision of thy storm-built grave ? How charge that gentle countenance of thine With crimes so deep, so dark in their

design ? I know thee not, thou art a mystery, Thou'tomb of one —one thou did "t take from be. I know thee not; perhaps it is as well. . . Thus, now I leave you for a while —farewell! —Phcenix.