Samuel L. Simpson wrote this sympathetic poem concerning the old Hudson Bay Company’s steamer Beaver, the first steam vessel on the North Pacific Coast. She came out from London in 1836 and is well remembered by Puget Sound pioneers. In 1889 she went on the rocks in Burrard Inlet, British Columbia.
THE BEAVER’S REQUIEM.
“Forlorn in the lonesome North she lies, That never again will course the sea, All heedless of calm or stormy skies, Or the rocks to windward or a-lee; For her day is done And her last port won Let the wild, sad waves her minstrel be.
“She will roam no more on the ocean trails, Where her floating scarf of black was seen Like a challenge proud to the shrieking gales By the mighty shores of evergreen; For she lies at rest With a pulseless breast In the rough sea’s clasp and all serene.
“How the world has changed since she kissed the tide Of the storied Thames in the Georgian reign, And was pledged with wine as the bonny bride Of the West’s isle-gemmed barbaric main— With a dauntless form That could breast the storm As she wove the magic commercial chain.
“For Science has gemmed her brow with stars From many and many a mystic field, And the nations have stood in crimsoned wars And thrones have fallen and empires reeled Since she sailed that day From the Thames away Under God’s blue sky and St. George’s shield.
“And the world to which, as a pioneer, She first came trailing her plume of smoke, Is beyond the dreams of the clearest seer That ever in lofty symbols spoke— In the arts of peace, In all life’s increase, And all the gold-browed stress invoke.
“A part of this was a work of hers, In a daring life of fifty years; But the sea-gulls now are her worshipers, Wheeling with cries more sad than tears, Where she lies alone And the surges moan— And slowly the north sky glooms and clears.
“And may we not think when the pale mists glide, Like the sheeted dead by that rocky shore, That we hear in the rising, rolling tide The call of the captain’s ring once more? And it well might be, So forlorn is she, Where the weird winds sigh and wan birds soar.”
The development of the most easily reached natural resources was necessarily first.