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SHIP AHOY!

[When Captain Cook was at Ship Cove, in Queen Charlotte Sound, the Maoris told him of a
vessel that had spent the previous winter in a port of Terawitiprobably Wellington Harbor.]

She sailed where never a ship had sailed
Oer the chartless seas alone,
The ship that won to a fame that failed,
The ship with a name unknown.

There were dreams in the suns that rose and set,
There were luring lights and fair;
But the wide, lone seas so soon forget
The freight that their waters bear.

Portugal, Holland, England, France
Whose was the flag she flew?
I see a captain of old romance
Clear eyed mid his bearded crew.

Strong were the hands on rope and spar,
Brown hands that the sun had kist,
For the hope of fame they drove afar
Their prow through the morning mist.

Oh, day on day to the South they sped.
And the silence round them prest;
By night large stars burned overhead,
Cold lights to guide their quest.

To East and West lay the coastless blue,
Gem-set with their lonely sail,
And the Great South Land that the map-men drew
Appeared but an idle tale.

Till a dawning broke with the suns first light
On a mountain crest afire,
And the long shore sang in its surf-roll white
The song of their hearts desire.

They came, they saw, and they sailed away
With never a mark to bind
The fame of their deed to rock and bay
In the land they left behind.

The record of Tasman the world may keep,
And Cook has a place of pride,
But ever and aye their fame must sleep
On the road where the great keels ride.

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Ship ahoy! Through the mists of days
And over the years that sleep
Comes never a hint of fame or praise
For the souls that the wide seas keep.

Pat OMaori.
Pseudonym of David McKee Wright.
The Lone Hand, April 1913.