THE MISSING SHIP

The Missing Ship. 

' The 'Guiding Star,' which left Liverpool on the 9th January last, for Melbourne, by the last advices had not arrived there, and her name is now posted at Lloyds as a missing ship."-" Times," 18th November 1855.

Sunlight on the water

And beautiful and bright: 

A stately ship is spreading

Her sails of snowy white.

The foam-spray flings around her

A flood of fleshing gems,

As through the broad blue billows,

So gallantly she stems.

The white cliffs of old England,

Fade dimly on the lee;

But strong and hopeful spirits, 

She beareth out to sea.

And one young heart among them

Bounded gladly as the foam;

For o'er the dark blue ocean, 

She bore him to his home; 

Where loving eyes were watching 

Through night and through the day, 

To see that gallant vessel 

In fair Port Phillip bay.

But wearily the months go by,

 And yet she cometh not ;

 But still the young boy's mother

 Keeps her accustomed spot 

She stands upon St. Kilda's beach,

And gazeth o'er the waves, 

That roll their broad unbroken swells,

 As green as churchyard graves.

 The winter storms blow round her, 

With deep and deadly thrill: 

They say that hope is over, 

But yet she waiteth still; 

And thinks of some green island,

 'Mid the far Pacific's calm, 

Where her boy may now be dreaming

 Beneath the feathery palm. 

 And when the sea is glassy.

 And moveless as the land,

When the summer sun is shining

Upon the glittering sand; 

She thinks of plains of snow,

Around the Southern pole, 

And dreams the bark is tossing 

Where the lofty icebergs roll.

And all the night, and all the day, 

She gazeth out afar 

If aught may bring her tidings

Of the missing ' Guiding Star;' 

But that stately ship, so beautiful, 

Has never crossed the main 

Was seen upon her ocean path, 

But never seen again. 

Emily E. B. -Kilmore " Examiner," February, 1856.. (c)

Kilmore Free Press no. 2409  20 July 1911 pg1