Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/20

 Oh! how throbbed his heart as thro’ the grating

Criss-cross yard and rigging made him,

Through warm nights again the Southern Cross’s

Gleam of welcome calm surveyed him

As the ship, on Heaven’s blue vault designing,

Once again the slender palm-stems twining,

Nearer, nearer to his home conveyed him.

And the nearer, ofter sank in pensive

Dreams and reveries the ape.

Once he started—sure, there, in the distance

’Twas his homeland’s wooded cape!

But swift tempest’s fury long impending

Sudden burst with thunder music blending

Earth and sea and sky in one wild shape.

Oh! then on that ill-starred bark heartrending,

Were the tragedies achieved

By those wan-eyed singers, actors—ghastly

Fair the opera they weaved,

To which into drum and trumpet storming

Tempest played the ouverture performing;

Feats of art e’en Wagner ne’er conceived.

Hanuman from that wild tumult clambered

To the main mast—terrors blight—

Thunder deafens—stoops the groaning top-mast,

It the surge-foams drift and bite;

And with that small ape, firm hold maintaining,

Wrathful ocean’s deep, as if disdaining,

Spat it forth on India’s shores of light.