The Harbour at Night: Picton,
New Zealand.
Warm is the night and still ; the misty clouds1
Obscure the moon so that there scarce is light2
Left in the world ; all round, the silent hills3
Sleep mystically ; and no night-haunting bird4
Startles the glooming trees with mournful cry.5
Silent the harbour sleeps, but myriad lights6
Spread, phosphorescent, out from shore to shore—7
Ripples and streaks of fire that live and die8
Moment by moment, till the waters seem9
Like to a sky of darkest purply-blue10
Turned upside-down, and thick with silver stars.11
Like silver phantoms round the weedy piles12
Of the dim-lighted wharf the fishes pass13
In endless-seeming lines from right to left,14
Ever the one direction following. Far away,15
And faint with distance, through the moonless air16
The steamer’s whistle sounds ; anon her lights17
Shine, dim and misty, as she rounds the point,18
While answering lights glare out upon the wharf.19
She nearer comes—the water ’neath her bows20
Is streaked with trembling lines of green and red21
And golden hues, that broad and broader grow22
As on she creeps, a larger-looming form23
Whose ever-throbbing engines beat and beat.24
Now in her path the ghost-like silver fish—25
With sound of quick and sudden little waves26
Rising and flapping on a sandy shore—27
Affrighted leap ; then for a moment sound28
Dies all away, and then breaks forth again29
In throb of engines, shouts, and rattling chains,30
And hissing steam, as to the trembling wharf31
The vessel is made fast, The flaring lamps32
Flicker and flame in the soft rainy air,33
And cast a glow upon the busy scene34
Of loading and unloading ; silence flies35
Into the darkest hollows of the hills.36