Goodbye , Morinda . . .
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
Farewell, old enemy! Now at last I love you— Worn, as I am, battered and warped by age.
No calm, safe harbour in your need is offered, But alien scrap-heap, deemed a life-time’s wage.
How I have cursed you! Prayed for death to snatch me Up from the heaving decks beneath my feet, And needed all the courage storm had left me To sit below, and stay from soup to sweet.
But sometimes there was calm: those nights when moonlight Shone black and silver on the patterned sea— Then your dark boat-deck offered soft distraction— Left unexplored, I’m almost sure, by me.
Three thousand pounds! Ah, what a wretched insult To offer for a ship that’s battered through Tempest and cyclone, waves that roared to Heaven, For years and years, and always brought us through.
Adieu . old ship! Could power rest with me You'd spend your dotage honourably— at sea.
M.M.
Bowral, NSW.
June, 1952.
Morinda sailing for her last voyage from Sydney to the New Hebrides last December. See story below.