[Editor: This poem by Charles Harpur was published in The Bushrangers; A Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems (1853).]
The Master Mariner’s Song.
(Outward Bound.)
Away, away she plunges
With her white sails o’er her spread,
Like the summer clouds that gather
On some hill’s piny head;
Still away she plunges rampant
Like a lion roused to wrath,
And the proud wave lies humbled
I’ the track of her path.
Ye ho! my gallant sailors
Wear her head from off the land:
As his steed obeys the Arab
How she gives to the hand!
And now like a soul the world forsaking,
She leaves the coast behind,
And the main is her wide dwelling
And her spouse is the wind.
Then pledge we a full measure
To the friends we left to-day,
Whose kind wishes hover o’er us
On our watery way:
Where diurnally remind us
Shall the same bright-brimming rite
Of the eyes that yearned blessings
When last we knew their light!
Source:
Charles Harpur, The Bushrangers; A Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems, Sydney: W. R. Piddington, 1853, pages 109-110
Editor’s notes:
diurnal = daily, happening every day; occurring in a 24-hour period; of or during the day, active during the day (e.g. flowers which open during the daytime, animals which are mostly active during the daytime) (archaic meanings: diary, daybook, journal; daily newspaper)
main = the high sea, the open ocean
o’er = over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)
piny = of or relating to pine trees; covered with pine trees
Vernacular spelling in the original text:
i’ (in)
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