Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-03-27


Prom its OBTAINING comrades breaking forth,
And travelling night and day.
Al whose command? Who babe it sailth deep
With that resstleSs force?
Who made the dread appointment il must keep,
Who traced lis awful course?
To the warm airs that stir in the sweet South
A good ship spread her sails;
Stately She passed beyond the harbor's mouth,
Chased by the favoring gales;
And on her ample decks happy crowd
Babe the fair land gool-by;
Clear shone the day, with not single cloud
IN ali the pc aceful sky.
Brave men, sweet women little children bright,
For all these she made room,
And with her freight of beauty and delight
she went to meet her doom.
storms hulleted the iceberg spray was swept
Across its Hottest hight
Guided alike 10y storm and calm it kept
lis fatal path Alright.
Then warmer waves gnawed at its crumbline
base,
As if in piteous plea;
The ardent sun sent slow tears down its face
Soft flowing to the sea.
Dawn kissed it with her tender rose tints. Eve
Bathed it in violet,
The wistful color Ger It ,eemed to grieve
With a divine regret.
Whether bay clad its clefts in rainbows dim
And shadowy rs a dream,
OR Night through lonely spaces saw il swim
White in the moonlight's CLEAN,
Ever Death rode upon its solemn nights.
Ever his watch he kept;
Cold at its heart through changing davs and
nights
Its.changeless purpose slept.
And where afar smiling coast it passed.
Stralghtway the air grew chill:
pWellerS thereon perceived a bitter blast,
A vague report of i'll.
Like some imperial creature, moving slow.
meanwhile, with matchleSs grace
The stately ship unconscious Of her foe.
Drew near the trysting-place.
For still the prosperous breezes followed her,
And half the voyage was Der,
In many breast glad thoughts began to stir
OF Lands that lay before.
And human hearts with longing love were
dumb,
That soon should cease to beat,
Thrilled with the hope of meetings soon 70
come,
And lost in memories sweet.
Was not the weltering waste of water wide
Enough for both to sail?
What drew the two together Ter the tide.
Fair ship and iceberg pale?
There came a night with neither moon nor star
Clouds draped the sky in black,
with iiuttering canvas reefed at every spar
And weird fire in her track,
The ship went on; wild wind gathering fast
Drove her at utmost speed,
Bravely she bent before the fitful blast
That shook her like reed
o helmsman, turn thy wheel Will no surmise
Cleave through the midnight drear?
No warming ofthe horrible surprise
Reach thine unconscious ear?
She rushed upon her ruin Not flash
Broke up the waiting dark
DULY through wind and sea one awful crash
Sounded, with none to mark
Scarcely her crew had time to clutch despair.
So swift the work was done:
Ere their pale lips could frame 1 speechless
prayer
They persisted, every one
1t was recited with a good deal of ex-
preston by Mr.. Page. A gentleman pres-
ent asked Lieutenant Greedy how he ac-
counted for the men preferring this sweet
but melancholy poem to cheerful themes.
to which he replied that the men-oyer-
come by the long, dark DAYS of the Arctic
winter, the intense silence, the barrenness
and desolation of nature, and depressed by
want of nourishment, seeing in each others
faces the pallor of starvation and death
became extremely morbid and retrospect
i've, realizing more keenly day by dav
mans utter incompetency to battle with
nature, especially the form of it they were
called to encounter there. Icebergs were
to them fearful reality, and, for his own
part the Lieutenant added, he could not
u, derstand how a woman like Mrs. Thax-
ter, who had never seen one, should have
chosen this subject for a theme and treated
il with such realism. i Correspondent
Philadelphia Press.