Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/129

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Sunset in the Tropics.
93

LIII.

Sunset in the Tropics.

  How grandly—when throughout the silent day,    Some ample Day, serene, divine,      Beneath the glowing Line  Our helpless ship had hung as in a trance  In light-blue glassiness of calm that lay      A wide expanse    Encircled by soft depths of ether clear,    Whose melting azure seemed to swim  Surcharged and saturate with balmiest brilliancy—  How grandly solemn was the Day’s decline!  Down as if wholly dropped from out the sky  The fallen Sun’s great disc would lolling lie  Upon the narrowed Ocean’s very rim,      Awfully near!  A hush of expectation almost grim  Wrapt all the pure, blank, empty hemisphere;  While straight across the gleaming crimson floor,  From the unmoving Ship’s black burnished side,  There ran a golden pathway right into the core  Of all that throbbing splendour violet-dyed;  Whither it seemed an easy task to follow  The liquid ripples tremblingly o’erflowing  Into the intense and blinding hollow  Of palpitating purple, showing    The way as through an open doorInto some world of burning bliss, undreamt of heretofore.  Whose heart would not have swelled, the while  Deep adoration and delight came o’er him  At that stupendous mystery, close before him!    Not less, but more stupendous that he knew    Perchance, whate’er the subtle surface-play
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