Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/258

That Heaven itself was smiling on the devious voyaging ship.
Deep was the joy that crowned their hopes when high above them reared,
Wreathed in its folded films of fog, the mountain bold and weird;
The mountain under whose bleak brow the great seas bask or break,
And round whose rock-built basements now vast fleets their courses take;
Nor was the Christmas-tide far off when they again set sail,
Bent still, the good Lord helping them, the Indian coast to hail.

Rounding the sea-girt Cape, whose crest rose high above the mast;
Rounding L'Agulhas' sandy point, seen from the mast at last;
Keeping all closely to the shore, for fear of surge and tide,
The little bark clung to her course, that cruel coast beside.
She passed the gaping cliffs through which the Knysna's waters flow,
And swung secure in sheltered coves when southern gales did blow.
Yon yawning bay whose leafless shore was then all bleak and bare,
Whose busy waters now are thronged by ships that gather there,—
At last behind them passed from sight, and then for days and weeks,