Originally published in Temple Bar (Ward and Lock) vol.3 #11 (Oct 1861).
I.
The shark swam waiting around the ship,
Reading a meal in the ensign's dip,
In the open gangway, the grating laid
That it marked the sea with its latticed shade.
II.
Then a long white bundle shot from the bark,
With a splash and a plunge, that it scared the shark,
And swift till the deep had pressure it sped,
With a weight at the feet, but what in the head?
III.
A moment more, and the shark gave chase
With a downward dive, and quick eye to trace;
As the water darkened, the speed destroyed,
Till the burden hung poised like a world in the void.
IV.
But a touch from the shark, and it moved again,
Balancing leisurely down the main,
To the sea-weed beds, with their tangled hair,
Green, purple, and crimson,—such light came there.
V.
Through the sea-weed beds the burden pass'd,
Through the sea-weed beds came the shark as fast,
'Till growing coral beneath them spread
Like a fine lace veil on the ocean bed.
VI.
Through the living coral the burden broke
To the bed of the ocean with weighty stroke;
And there in a bower of fretwork it lay,
Like a folded corpse on the burial-day.
VII.
But the living coral united afresh,
With peopled cell and thick-woven mesh,
And fast through the water an island rose,—
A new world built out of man's repose.
VIII.
The palm, the cocoa, the plantain broad,
The shrinking mimosa, the lavish gourd,
Of parasite tendril, and flower, and leaf,
The birds had dropped on the barren reef.
IX.
And the ship returned, and its anchor fell
In the still lagoon, where the rolling swell
Was fended off by a ledge that ran
In parallel curve to the island's span.
X.
Did this anchor bring tidings of what lay there
At the roots of the isle, which was ocean bare?
When they passed it first, did they guess for whom
The new world had grown,—for their comrade's tomb?