Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/276

 "Child of the ocean, we Peris shall miss thee,
 * Gone from the cleft where thou usedst to hide;

Never again shall the sea-weed kiss thee,
 * As it lazily swing's in the murmuring tide;

Never again, O child of the ocean,
 * Shall the song of the conches lull thee to rest,

As softly moving in dreamy motion
 * We rocked thee to sleep on our snowy breast.

But our wishes shall follow wherever thou goest,
 * Though far over mountain and sea thou should'st roam,

And, whate'er in thy new life befalls thee, thou knowest
 * We remember thee still in thy ocean home."

So it wandered through many a land
 * From its ocean depths of azure;

Lingering now by some tropic strand,
 * Now borne beside the glacier;

Ever ablaze with the beauty's light
 * Which its wondrous birth had given,—

One had deemed it a seraph's tear-drop bright,
 * If the angels weep in heaven.

But at length it reached the long-sought rest
 * For which it had wandered far,

When I placed it upon my darling's breast,
 * Where it shone like the morning star;

And yet, for all it gleamed so bright
 * As it lay in her bosom fair,

It blushed to find itself less white,
 * And glowed a ruby there.

Anonymous.