Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/114

 And how the stout ship stood the shock, Perchance, of many a raging gale, Till on some fatal shaft of rock, She perished, 'mid the water's wail.

"Dear one," she said, "in future time, When you and I are fast asleep; Some waif of ours, perchance this rhyme, Time's waves upon Life's shore may keep.

"And lovers in their lives' sweet spring Will read their story in our own, And feel, as from a sea-bird's wing, Light teardrops on their eyelids blown.

"When they, content, have lulled their bliss To slumber light with painless sighs, Before they wake it with a kiss, They'll scan our thought with chastened eyes;

"And e'en as this dead thing hath power To lift from us Time's fallen veil, Our Song, like some dim book-pressed flower, Will Life's lost perfume new exhale."

W.C. Scully.