MUSINGS BY THE SEA
.\ DESERTED! ,_ A STORY AT SUNSET ./[BY .MESS MEBE.], . Solitude 1 Cresoent-shaped Paokakariki. beach, from its southern headland round to its ■ mist-enveloped northern extremity, was deserted, . . • No human.. footsteps wore crunching along the- shell-strewn , shore:. all seabird life bad for the nonce, skimmed elsewhere. The i gladsome glories of a Rolden late -Autumn afternoon in.one of Wellington's most delightful holiday nooka were quickly fading, unsung, uneuvisioned by appreciative beholders. The sun, art orange-hued ball, Was Westeripg. to where a lazily-rolling, molten; sea limited the horizon.- A cloud streak gleamed as .burnished copper.. ..To a hill-hemmed city man's eyes the jranins sunbeams,- mellowing across the expanse of sea,-' streamed like threads of gold v into -memory's store. The sun was really just slipping past tho sky-line or tho Tinakori Hills. ■ 1 Preoccupied with the thralling beau'ties of the Nature-screened, picture, I bad. not noticed the coining of a poeticlooking man, with the stooped shoulders, of the student, who had taken, a place, on' the other end of the seat. With the tense-drawn face of tho dreamer, he was gazing out to sea: along a shimmering pathway, at whose 'apex the orange-hued ball now rested, the rim just, merging in.the sea., -. ... ..' Perceptibly, the sea crept up tho balh.fthe dreamer lost not a.'.phase of the submersion." It was some momenta, utter'the sea bad completely ,blott*d out' the yellow rim, and a ruddy-flecked cloud alone bpre evidence of the passfug .of tho day, that he turned, as if Just.aware of my presence.- • . "And what does.Keats say?" he murmured.' Whether addressing me, the uea, the. departed sun,: or a returning Ecagull, I. knew not—-the ways of the poetic dreamer ■ are beyond me. And then, apparently;! he bethought himself of what Keats said, as I caught the fragment:' , .• ■ ""-■-:■ '' ■' .' " " . . . . thou ha6t thy music too, .While'barred clouds bloom the .soft-dying flay, . . ■. , , . ■ And touch the stubble plains'with rosy hue'; ■,'"''.• . Then in'a , wailful choir. ~."
At length I materialised in his sight, and in a dolorous voice' he asked ine did Bunsets cause mo any sadness. I said_.thatin'the' days when cycling was ail obsession 'with "me they' .lad, if miles from homo I had no lamp..to shed a gleam along a policeman-patrolled way.,.' '"■'■ ■":■, ■'•'■' ■ .-. ■" : ■ . Biit'a sadness-,of'the'soul?' To'hfmi of poetic temporanient,-each ' sunset he. saw typified some epochal life tragedy—- . the making or, marring,of.eome.human existence. He had expressed his sentiments in many sta'nzas— : yet unpublished. The sunset ho had.just witnessed had conjured in his' mind' in parable form an occasion when he tad taken part in a murder—the""murder of a man's' faith in his fellow-man. ' It was a crime that weiglied -heavy with 'him—ho had dealt with "it in one'of his stanzas—but never till that evening when a' . Parable of ■ the' Setting Sun came to■ him had - .he fully 'realised .his misdoing.'; Would I listen to 'his' story? ; : .-' "There comes a time in each man's, life, I {Kink," he went on, "when,', tiring of spring songs and day dreams, ho is seized with. -the", notion that he has a, serious ' mission—th& nation awaits his, debut in'-the. administrative ephe're 4o set all wrongs right.. And for a'space ho conceitedly plumes himself that he can do hynot.shown his ability in'debate.'at the' Men's-Glut?? F-v. : .. r 'l ,! iie'v|r ,'ffiought of standing ! f6r P&rKainent nrylelf,; but in -a--time of'distraction from "the beauties "of the I signed' a petition askihg old' Sam Silyefri'tb ftintesV theTVi-anglolands seat, Our sitting mem-. ber, Robbie :; O'Tbcker, had announced for the ninth time that he was resigning, so the local Party selected Sam. Sam had been Mayor of ;Wheatsheaf for many years, and who, in tho worde of the petition, Was 'inore -worthily fitted to look after the destinies of u're County' of Wranglelands' in the councils'of the nation' than he?. Sam was cutting, a" clieeso' ifl his 'store when ilio deputation; with ifa petition—blotted and thumbed all over with its"669"siimings—oamo along.' • The eignaiones wero-- alhgood and/truo burgegses, citiKens, and electors. We. told Sam, standing knifo in one hand and cube of cheese in the other,' that lie was as good as M.P, for Wranglelands, and he consented to our prayer and calmly' went on up the cheesb. ' But tbe perfidy of tarty— r" ' Some memory seemed to overwhelm nim, so I'drew'his'attention'to the pul S le .'. nts now shading the outlinoß pr iiapiti Island, thinking thus to stir nis poetic nature and-cause an oblivion or an electioneering debacle. '■' • "They, made me,, king of a literary bont, a sort-bf. assistant-secretary ■ to Sam,'. Well-versed in municipal lore bam. may have been,- but in-affairs of the wider politics he. was thk recruit. Thq Party, though, .saw' to his educa-' won, and his first speech in its typewritten form was a model. But its delivery! ... The Townfiall was packed, and when Sam rose afte;-' ; the. Chairluim s introduction, the volume of cheering, clapping, 'and stamping of feet caused the caretaker to anxiously gaze at some cracks in the plastered ceiling. . Adjusting his spectacles;- Sam took a firm-hold of the bundle of type-.written Bheets,,,and, in a monotone, stolidly set out to read them. Full-stop, comma, Semi-colon—all were immaterial to Sam; solemnly he disregarded them. Tho audience were patiently waiting the end, when Sam, by mischance, turned over two slips together, and from a fervidwritten appeal for the conservation of the
fiational land endowments, plunged headong into naval defence at d point where I had inserted a few lines of my own: When .the pride of England wakes, ■■ Like a lion roused from sleep, And her massy mane she shakes O'er the. billows of tho-deep— When. England wakes-! ■ . ■ ■ Some rude person ejaculated 'Baa!' and Sam. dropped his folios, and in ,an impassioned manner asked, who dared to doubt-him? . Nobody, of course. So he returned to his typewritten politics,, and, in hjs, upset, commenced to.re-read it from the' beginning! - . . , -Non©.dared to gainsay- him, and Wheatsheaf was late Kottine: home to bed that,-.night. The immediate committee assured- Sam that the meeting., was' a cr'eat succes«, end, .-believing'iii'.. his fellow-man,, .he. caused his old trap-maro ■ much wondermmit...at the change in- his method, of living by conscientiously driving; eacli night..to., way-back■ schoolrooms to address handfuls of electors. .-... . "And then O'Tocker recanted on his ninth'resignation, and a Party big-gun hoomccl forth to thn faithful that the opposition must;be defeated.'.'. Vote for O'Tockor! .'".'.'■-' "Good man that Sam Silvern was, his turn would conio later. And. they v6ted for O'TockeY/who got in.' "Sam got 281 Votes.' '.' "Hn would not hnvo cared, he told mo, if his pollinc; had boon equal to tlie quota of petitioning signatories—and then he used harder words, of tlio'desertors. Tho vagaries of the Party machine Were strange to him. 'Sam's municipal firmament had been clear aiid bright: the petition ho doomed a .call: but it'lefl onlv to a setting in gloom and 'distrust. What does Burns say— "'Man's inhumnnitv to mon Makes- countless thousands mourn. I wad Rolng' to ' mention that there was loss; sonl in Polities than in Poetry, lut wtyltouta word of farewell, he left— doubtless to write in stanza form his Parable of the Setting Sun, which ho had omitted to completely unfold to bio.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19140413.2.76
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2121, 13 April 1914, Page 9
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,177MUSINGS BY THE SEA Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2121, 13 April 1914, Page 9
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.