POETRY.

ALCHEMY.

Is seventy-nine her keel was laid, She did ten years in the coastal trade, But since those days she's been a rover Tramping the seven seas all over, Tramping them back and fore and sideways.

But mostly on uncharted tidewaya That honest traders had no word of And gun-boat captains never heard of, She's wandered where the pack-ice reaches Seal-poaching on the Behring beaches;

Up sluggish, soupy jungle rivers,

Where lurk proas, devils and the shivers, Swapping condemned, corroded rifles For pearls, spice, gold-duet and such trifles.

Off flowery, fairy isles she's hovered Trading (her customers all covered By Maxims ranged along her gunnel) Rigged false masts and a dummy funnel,

Flown the White Cross of Island missioners Then haled her coppery parishioners— Despite their frantic supplications—

To bondage on remote plantations, With bland and icicle eftront'ry She's flown the flag of every country And changed her name to match her kidney.

She's been the ' Wallaroo' of Sydney; The ' Oscar Ohlsen ' of Carlskrona; The 'Santa F4' of Barcelona;

The ' Kelpie,' Leith; Catania;

The ' Konig Haakon,' Christiania—

To give a typical selection.

With paint she's altered her complexion And practised manifold disguises

Pursuing shady enterprises All up and down the world's dim edges.

Whilst noble ships have split on ledges Or drowned on nights of flame and thunder And eager clippers sailed clean under.

Still she slinks on, battered and rusty,

Her engines lame, her bottom crusty, Her deck-house starred with bullet splashes, Her fo'es'le scarred with shrapnel gashes, Loud with her engines' crazy clamour Into the splendid sunset glamour; Leaky and foul, accursed and haunted She staggers onward, nothing daunted, The oily flame-gilt waters churning, Her rusty hide all glowing, burning With her every stay a gleaming wire And her every port-hole flashing fire; Sun-blazoned into the west goes she, A golden ship on a golden sea.

Coosa= Gomm.