A BALLAD OF THE WHALER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue V, 30 July 1898, Page 159

A BALLAD OF THE WHALER.

(BY ROWAN STEVENS.) This is a song of the open seas, of the pale blue berg and the nor’west breeze, Of the porpoise rolling in oily ease, And the spout of the great sperm whale. Where loftily over the king duck flies. And barren and black do the cliffs arise, And deep in the haze of auroraed skies The midnight sun is pale. In old Nantucket my childish hand Waved to the fishers from the land; I watched the whalers outward stand By the point of the headland low; And as I followed the distant sail. Over and over I heard the tale Of many a chase of the great sperm whale In the seas of ice and snow. Those were the stories that I knew As ever the years of childhood flew. Unto the power of youth I grew, The beckoning ocean by; I learned to hand and reef and steer, I caught the skill of the harpooneer, I longed for the whaler’s wild career. And forth to the chase went I. With a frolicsome sou’west gale behind Saucily tossing us down the wind. Lower and lower the coast declined. And up for the north we steered, Swinging along with a windy sky. Till the air grew cold and the sea rose high. And the pinnacled iceberg, towering high In ponderous calm appeared.