Lo, a large, black-shrouded barge Sadly moves with sails outspread, And mute creatures' muffled features Hold grim watch above the dead.
Calm below it lies the poet, With his fair face bare and white, Still with yearning ever turning Azure eyes toward heaven's light.
As he saileth, sadly waileth Some bereaven Undine bride: O'er the springing waves outringing, Hark! a dirge floats far and wide.
This is the springtide's mournful feast: The frantic troops of blooming girls Are rushing hither with flying curls: Moaning they smite their bare white breast, Adonis! Adonis!
The night hath come. By the torches' gleams They search the forest on every side, That echoes with anguish far and wide, With tears, mad laughter, and sobs and screams, Adonis! Adonis!
The mortal youth, so strangely fair, Lies on the cold turf pale and dead: His heart's blood staineth the flowers red, And a wild lament fulfills the air, Adonis! Adonis!
I must certainly begin this letter by setting aside every other topic for the moment and telling you of our grand event, our national celebration, our historical New Year's Day. We have "turned the first sod" of our first inland railway, and, if I am correctly informed, at least a dozen sods more, but you must remember, if you please, that our navvies are Kafirs, and that they do _not_ understand what Mr. Carlyle calls the beauty and dignity of labor in the least. It is all very well for you conceited dwellers in the Old and New Worlds to laugh at us for making such a fuss about a projected hundred miles of railway--you whose countries are made into dissected maps by the magic iron lines--but for poor us, who have to drag every pound of sugar and reel of sewing-cotton over some sixty miles of vile road between this and Maritzburg, such a line, if it be ever finished, will be a boon and a blessing indeed.
I think I can better make you understand _how_ great a blessing if I describe my journeys up and down--journeys made, too, under exceptionally favorable circumstances. The first thing which had to be done, some three weeks before the day of our departure, was to pack and send down by wagon a couple of portmanteaus with our smart clothes. I may as well mention here that the cost of the transit came to fourteen shillings each way for three or four small, light packages, and that on each occasion we were separated from our possessions for a fortnight or more. The next step to be taken was to secure places in the daily post-cart, and it required as much mingled firmness and persuasion to do this as though it had reference to a political crisis. But then there were some hundreds of us Maritzburgians all wanting to be taken down to D'Urban within the space of a few days, and there was nothing to take us except the open post-cart, which occupied six hours on the journey, and an omnibus, which took ten hours, but afforded more shelter from possible rain and probable sun. Within the two vehicles some twenty people might, at a pinch, find places, and at least a hundred wanted to go every day of that last week of the old year. I don't know how the others managed: they must have got down somehow, for there they were in great force when the eventful day had arrived.