Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/276

"Child of the ocean, we Peris shall miss thee,
Gone from the cleft where thou usedst to hide;
Never again shall the sea-weed kiss thee,
As it lazily swing's in the murmuring tide;
Never again, O child of the ocean,
Shall the song of the conches lull thee to rest,
As softly moving in dreamy motion
We rocked thee to sleep on our snowy breast.
But our wishes shall follow wherever thou goest,
Though far over mountain and sea thou should'st roam,
And, whate'er in thy new life befalls thee, thou knowest
We remember thee still in thy ocean home."

So it wandered through many a land
From its ocean depths of azure;
Lingering now by some tropic strand,
Now borne beside the glacier;
Ever ablaze with the beauty's light
Which its wondrous birth had given,—
One had deemed it a seraph's tear-drop bright,
If the angels weep in heaven.

But at length it reached the long-sought rest
For which it had wandered far,
When I placed it upon my darling's breast,
Where it shone like the morning star;
And yet, for all it gleamed so bright
As it lay in her bosom fair,
It blushed to find itself less white,
And glowed a ruby there.

Anonymous.