| |
| THE GREY of Ocean’s denseness | |
| Surrounds her like a veil; | |
| In silent deeps’ immenseness | |
| No laughing seas give hail; | |
| But round her, rudely riven, | 5 |
| The sullen waters feel | |
| Her stout hull, engine-driven, | |
| A thrilling thing of steel | |
| That cleaves a pathway under | |
| The breakers’ snarling lips— | 10 |
| That mocks the big guns’ thunder | |
| And scorns the battle-ships. | |
| |
| She goes by deeps and shallows | |
| ’Neath blue Australian seas, | |
| Where never sun enhaloes | 15 |
| A wandering ocean breeze; | |
| Yet, at her steersman’s willing, | |
| She lifts her stalk-like eye | |
| To see the sunlight spilling | |
| Its gold on sea and sky; | 20 |
| And, mirrored in fair colour, | |
| The picture true is thrown | |
| Where, in the sea-light duller, | |
| Her spinning engines drone. | |
| |
| When, with her bearings taken, | 25 |
| She plunges deep again, | |
| She is as one forsaken, | |
| Beyond the world of men. | |
| Yet living men tend truly | |
| Her tanks’ and air-valves’ flow, | 30 |
| And oil her engines duly, | |
| For it was ordered so— | |
| Aye, tho’ beyond the borders | |
| Of human worlds they be, | |
| Their orders still are orders, | 35 |
| And what avails the sea? | |
| |
| ’Neath bright electrics glowing | |
| They reck not that outside, | |
| In age-long course, is flowing | |
| The grey-green under-tide. | 40 |
| By periscope and needle | |
| And pressure gauge they steer; | |
| For who with steel can wheedle | |
| As does the engineer, | |
| In whose quick brain is hidden | 45 |
| The secrets of the stars— | |
| Who on the storms has ridden, | |
| And hurled the thunder-cars? | |
| |
| He hears the steady murmur | |
| Of engines in the gloom. | 50 |
| Could deck or floor be firmer | |
| Than his deep engine-room? | |
| And he whose touch the rudders | |
| Respond to like a child, | |
| Calm, when she turns and shudders, | 55 |
| With silent mien and mild— | |
| He makes new pathways under | |
| The breakers’ snarling lips; | |
| He mocks the big guns’ thunder | |
| And scorns the battle-ships. | 60 |
| |
