Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/113

Rh THE BROKEN MAST.

morn in Spring, my love and I Went down the hillside to the sea; We watched the sea-birds wheeling fly, Wild as the waves are, and as free.

The water broke about our feet And flung us many a fleet foam-feather; Ah, love, that day was passing sweet, Spring, sea, and thou and I, together.

High stranded by some long-spent wave The fragments of a shattered mast We found, and straight our mood waxed grave O'er unknown woes and dangers past.

We pictured Norway's pine-clad hills, Where once this long-lost waif had stood, Then sombre with late autumn's chills, Ere Winter's word had stilled each flood.

We thought how, in some dockyard's bound, The new ship's mast was deftly stept, And how, 'mid acclamative sound, The vessel to the water leapt;

And how the helmsman sadly turned The ship's head from the Polar Star To where strange constellations burned O'er lands from his loved home afar.