An Exile's Farewell by Adam Lindsay Gordon

The ocean heaves around us still With long and measured swell, The autumn gales our canvas fill, Our ship rides smooth and well. The broad Atlantic's bed of foam Still breaks against our prow; I shed no tears at quitting home, Nor will I shed them now! Against the bulwarks on the poop I lean, and watch the sun Behind the red horizon stoop His race is nearly run. Those waves will never quench his light, O'er which they seem to close, To-morrow he will rise as bright As he this morning rose. How brightly gleams the orb of day Across the trackless sea! How lightly dance the waves that play Like dolphins in our lee! The restless waters seem to say, In smothered tones to me, How many thousand miles away My native land must be! Speak, Ocean! is my Home the same Now all is new to me? The tropic sky's resplendent flame, The vast expanse of sea? Does all around her, yet unchanged, The well-known aspect wear? Oh! can the leagues that I have ranged Have made no difference there? How vivid Recollection's hand Recalls the scene once more! I see the same tall poplars stand Beside the garden door; I see the bird-cage hanging still; And where my sister set The flowers in the window-sill Can they be living yet? Let woman's nature cherish grief, I rarely heave a sigh Before emotion takes relief In listless apathy; While from my pipe the vapours curl Towards the evening sky, And 'neath my feet the billows whirl In dull monotony! The sky still wears the crimson streak Of Sol's departing ray, Some briny drops are on my cheek, 'Tis but the salt sea spray!

Then let our barque the ocean roam, Our keel the billows plough; I shed no tears at quitting home, Nor will I shed them now!

Walking Home

Emmanuel S. Torres

At midnight I and a stranger drowse toward separate homes. The crunch of small stones underfoot reminds us how far we are

from each other, although our shadows would include each other more than once, streaming forward from the streetlight behind us

brightening the loneliness of the steps toward sleep. At the fork of the road, we part ways, deepening into night.

How we are closer now, brothered by night's darkness and beasts of solitude on all fours. Each bush is thick with shadowbrows

of thieves and the unloved wind blows my hair to let me in on its curious passion for prodigals. As from tree stones

harden away and from stones my heels, I think of what I have done or not done, of what I am supposed to repent to the night that has

small power to absolve. Frogs croak across my wayfaring, persisting upon my will to walk not past the life whose sakes

could be mine to share piecemeal out to others. Stars are in their places, naturally, and have nothing to give, only beauty, although I have

wronged lives and my own least name walking more than miles away from those I would love and strangers to whom I have given

false directions. Yet I take courage from one lightbulb left burning at the backdoor of a house no batwing black

can foul, cancelling all thought of stars, their strange violence and stranger absences. It will not blur in my storm:

one light godfathering tracks back to worn thresholds, not furthering the cause of darkness in, but my makeshift life,

another only try to brighten the four corners of what I have and set straight my room's several wayward lines (1966)