Half a century ago,
On the tides that shoreward swept,
Merchant vessels, swift or slow,
To the harbour leapt or crept.

From the fertile Indian isles
In hot Southern seas they came,
Over Ocean's countless miles,
With red sunset fires aflame.

Fruited cargoes here they brought,
Guava, ginger, fig, and prune,
Rice and spice, and rare birds caught
In the sluggish tropic noon.

These old wharves re-echoed then
All the sounds of seaport trade,
Pulleys plied by strong-armed men,
Noisy anchors cast and weighed;

Crashing, carrying, cheering loud,
Wild discordant bawl and brawl,
Black and white, a motley crowd—
Ah, but how men loved it all!

And the masts that hedged the town,
How they creaked in every breeze,
Standing bold and bare and brown,
Like unnumbered forest trees.

Proud old wharves, so silent now,
Haughtier in your grim decay
Than when many a princely prow
Sought you from the lower bay,

Symbols of dead dreams are ye,
Figures of the phantom piers
Where we made so buoyantly
Anchor in our earlier years.

Yet the barren tides that creep
Up the harbour night and morn,
Plunge and plash and laugh and leap
Round your bases old and worn,

Nothing now of sadness bear,
For our barks have found since youth
Roomier wharves, in harbours where
They may anchor fast to truth,

Till Time's petty traffic done,
All the bawl and brawl and strife,
Happier voyages are begun
To the shores of endless life.