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Ports Of The Open Sea
ОглавлениеDown here where the ships loom large in
The gloom when the sea-storms veer,
Down here on the south-west margin
Of the western hemisphere,
Where the might of a world-wide ocean
Round the youngest land rolls free—
Storm-bound from the World’s commotion,
Lie the Ports of the Open Sea.
By the bluff where the grey sand reaches
To the kerb of the spray-swept street,
By the sweep of the black sand beaches
From the main-road travellers’ feet.
By the heights like a work Titanic,
Begun ere the gods’ work ceased,
By a bluff-lined coast volcanic
Lie the Ports of the wild South-east.
By the steeps of the snow-capped ranges,
By the scarped and terraced hills—
Far away from the swift life-changes,
From the wear of the strife that kills—
Where the land in the spring seems younger
Than a land of the Earth might be—
Oh! the hearts of the rovers hunger
For the Ports of the Open Sea.
But the captains watch and hearken
For a sign of the South Sea wrath—
Let the face of the South-east darken,
And they turn to the ocean path.
Ay, the sea-boats dare not linger,
Whatever the cargo be;
When the South-east lifts a finger
By the Ports of the Open Sea.
Down South by the bleak Bluff faring,
North where the Three Kings wait,
The storms of the South-east daring,
They race through the foam-tossed strait;
Astern, where a white-winged roamer
Found death in the temptest’s roar,
The wash of the foam-flaked comber
Runs green to the black-ribbed shore.
For the South-east lands are dread lands
To the sailor high in the shrouds,
Where the low clouds loom like headlands,
And the black bluffs blur like clouds.
When the breakers rage to windward
And the lights are masked a-lee,
And the sunken rocks run inward
To a Port of the Open Sea.
But oh! for the South-east weather—
The sweep of the three-days’ gale—
When, far through the flax and heather,
The spindrift drives like hail.
Glory to man’s creations
That drive where the gale grows gruff,
When the homes of the sea-coast stations
Flash white from the darkening bluff!
When the swell of the South-east rouses
The wrath of the Maori sprite,
And the brown folk flee their houses
To crouch in the flax by night,
And wait as they long have waited—
In fear as the brown folk be—
The wave of destruction fated
For the Ports of the Open Sea.
* * * * *
Grey cloud to the mountain bases,
Wild boughs in their rush and sweep;
The rounded hills in their places
With tussocks like flying sheep;
The storm-bird alone and soaring
O’er grasses and fern and tree;
And the beaches of boulder roaring
The Hymn of the Open Sea.
