Vlamingh and Rottnest Island

In the late 17th century Vlamingh, a Dutch seaman under the command of the East India Company, came upon Rottnest Island, W.A., during his search for the ship Ridderschap van Holland.

Christmas—always, forever, a Morning and a Coming.

Dawn is that village of the north

Casting its net of snow for our home-thought;

Or dawn is groggy Batavia’s transforming,

Perhaps the rumour, venture of an actual light

In the huzzahs and the haze of our setting-forth.

Christmas and three ships, token of far places.

The sea-grain’s fruitless fastening

On our numb timbers, all the sea like a stylus

With its bickering passport-motion at our faces.

Magi of a kind? for the Company’s divine remoteness

Launched us, Their yellow bunting above us listening.

Christmas, past dawn. It is not the Ridderschap van Holland

(Errant star of our search) that is born on water,

Shepherded by coarse cloud with an eastern smile.

But with gulls galore it bears itself well, this island,

As a small craft, and every fulfilling mile

Brings closer to us some newborn navigator.

Face to face. Midday. He deals us the black swan’s

Dive of welcome from shingle to promontory,

His queer-shaped trees have the reassuring leaf,

His smoke is the penmanship of a man’s hands,

And lastly he opens the tattered log of the reef:

Fallen kings, wreckage—but never a word of our quarry.