Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/122

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At Sea.
Are all—the heart-throbs and the busy mindsAre gone, and wordless comes the wind, the lightNo longer sees itself in human eyes,Nor watch of man is set upon this world.
 Nevertheless, it lives, and has its being.The wind blows on, the sky presides, the seaHer ageless journeying round the earth pursues,And onward all the untrodden currents flow.Man come or gone, ’tis equal. Nature stillRemains, and still the stable elementsFill their inherent office. Sweet with saltThe free air wanders o’er the wandering waves,Bright shines the sun upon the shipless sea.

B. E. Batirhan.

XLIX.

At Sea.

When the Southern gale is blowing hard,The watch are all on the topsail yard.
And when five come down where six went up,There’s one less to share the bite and sup.
A name is missed when the roll they call;A hand the less for the mainsail haul.
They steal his rags and his bag and bed;Little it matters to him who’s dead.
Instead of the stone and carven verse,This is his epitaph, curt and terse:
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