Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/249

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Night Island.
213

CXLVII.

Night Island.

Rocking upon the spectral seaA shallop swims awaiting me, Boat of the Fay;Frail is the crescent, hollowed thin;Rapt in a dream I sit therein And speed away.
Silent the midnight; light the fleeceAdrift across the moon of peace; The air is suave;In quivering, glancing, broken bars,The trembling silver of the stars Floats on the wave.
No foam is cleft beneath the prow,No tinkling ripple taps the bow, No whitening wakeThe magic keel of ivory shows,That swerves not left or right but knows The way to take.
Fast, o’er the foamless, silent seaThe wistful boat skims eagerly Till pale shores rise,A coast where rings no pilot’s hail.And there, in deeps no seamen sail, Night Island lies.
At first, one cloudy dome, but soonFlecked like the circle of the moon With shadowy shapes,
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