Page:Australian and Other Poems.djvu/49

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44
LINES, ON BOARD THE SHIP "ESSEX."

Cape Horn's frozen bulwark looms
To stay our course 'mid stormy seas;
The icebergs gleam like fairy homes,
As fair and fatal oft as these.

The Tropic zones we needs must brave.
Where burning skies display their wrath,
And even Britain's hoped-for wave
Presents a peril-compassed path.

In thoughts like these see the lesson lie —
Our proven friends to cherish so,
That though we bid our last good-bye,
Bright flowers of thought our memories strow.