MAILS

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VIII, Issue 2, 1 May 1903, Page 134

MAILS

The tail rods leap in their bearings, They rise with a rush and ring, Then sink to a sound of laughter, And hurried and short they sin;) — " We carry the Mails — His Majesty' Mails — Make way for the Mails of the King." We've swung her head for the open bay, And spun by the maddening steam, Her screws are drumming the miles away Where the bright star-shadows dream. She lifts and sways to the ocean swell — The lighthouse glares on high, And the fisher-lads in their boats will tell How they saw the Mail sweep by A-thrill from keel to her reeling spars, With the screw-foam boiling white, And her black smoke dimming the watching stars As she soared thro' the soundless night. " Full speed ahead ! " shout the wrenching rods, " Full speed," and spray on her rail, We'll heed no order to stop save God's, For we are the Ocean Mail.

We carry the wealth of the world, I trow, The power and the fame of men, The altered word, and the lover's vow, All held in the turn of a pen ; To the clash and ring of the whirling throws, And the crash and swing of the seas, We bearing the grief that the mother knows As she sobs and prays on her knees. The cares and joys of the throbbing world, They are measured in piston-strokes, When the bright prow-smother is rent and hurled, And the hot wake steams and smokes. And the stars may blaze in the skies a-thrill, And the weary stars grow pale, But. night and day we are driving still, For we are the Ocean Mail. A faint; far hail; and a waving light — The whirl of our steering-gear — And we are staggering in our flight, With a fishing-boat just clear. The big fish shudder to hear the thud And stamp of our engine-room, As we thunder on with our decks a-flood In the blind, bewildering gloom.

The sailing craft and the crazy tramps Loom up, and are lost astern, And the stars of their bridge and their masthead lamps Are the only stars that burn. To the swinging blows of the heavy throws, And the slide-valves' dreary wail, We swing and soar with our flues a-roar, For we are the Ocean Mail. They watch for us at the river mouth, And wait for us in the stream, Looking forever to east and south, For our quivering lights a-gleam ; And onward ever we're plunging fast Where the shy mermaiden dwells, And the crested kings of the sea ride past — Oh ! the pomp rf the rolling swells.

And the lighthouse men, when they see our star Lift clear of the starry maze, Will watch us swagger across the bar, And swing to the channelled ways. Yet never a sign or a sound we give — No blast of horn nor a hail — For we must race that the world may live, And we are the Ocean Mail. The good screws labouring under, Laugli hoarsely and lift and fling The eddying foam behind them, And muttering thick they sing — " Make, way for the Mails — His Mqjrsfi/s Mails — We- carry the Mails for the King.'' Quilp N.