Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 11, No. 11, September 22nd, 1948

Round the World

Round the World

Calm days, over rare waters,
Under the eye of the Dancer,—
White sails, blue skies:
Small winds dancing, and bathers
Over the side,—head, shoulders
In the sun, and then, drop,
Down, far into the wide sea.
There's a small home of water
Round the boat's side, and birds,
Gulls—there are a dozen kinds—
Sail past, or pause, and watch
With heads poking down
And the strong white wings
Holding the currents of air.
Sound and reflection make boundaries for us,
But at midday a great calm
Unfolds the infinite surface of the sea
And even these natural signs
Of ownership of water, fade out
As they should do, and nothing
Remains save the soft wind dancing.

We have sailed past islands
Or for days without sight of land.
Strange, huge fish have
Followed us, and the strangest birds.
You will not know what we have felt
But our minds have returned often to you.
There have been coastlines
That took us through marvellous patterns
And shapes of movement,
Going as we do this strange crab-fashion,
And watching the far-off headland
Or turning to the white sighing shore.
We have worked like fools
In the harder kinds of seaweather,
But on the calm days
There was none who could be so idle
Or wander through the future, talking
Slow hour by slow drifting hour.

Storm days, meeting huge seas.
Under the eye of the Fury,—
Bare mast, leaden air.
We are sailing a covered world,
From south to north, and south,
And the green high hills
Go rolling down the land.
Capped with salt-grey foliage
And leaves blown across our minds
Like gusts in a sheltered valley.
And then in the southern Spring
There are white clouds high
And familiar music leads
The wind, by the gay, green fields:
Coming up the harbour.

—P.S.W.