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EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908329-90-8
PDF ISBN: 978-0-908332-86-1
The original publication details are as follows:
Title: From Zealandia : a book of verse / by Wilhelmina Sherriff Elliot.
Author: Elliot, Wilhelmina Sherriff
Published: John M. Watkins, London, England, 1925
FROM ZEALANDIA
Looking up Mil.ford Sound from Windbound Point
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FROM ZEALANDIA
A BOOK OF VERSE
BY WILHELMINA SHERRIFF ELLIOT
AUTHOR OF
"SKRVICE: A NEW ZKALAND STORY"
LONDON
JOHN M. WATKINS
21 CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD
11
Copyright by Wilhelmina S her riff Elliot
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH
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CONTENTS
PAGE
Queen of Pacific Seas! 1
Beautiful Zealandia! 2
A Patriotic Chant 5
Riverton Sands 7
Invercargill Chimes 16
By Clutha’s Banks 19
Memories 21
Yesternight 23
A Song of Happiness 25
Andrew Fleming 28
Love Divinely Free 30
Burial at Sea 34
Song written for the Girls of Victoria School 37
Going Home 39
Rerenga Wairua 41
Nga Huia 46
Juggernaut 51
Saved! 53
vii
CONTENTS
PAGE
Saith the Lord 54
Birthright 57
Omnia Vincit Amor 60
Lo! The Glad Morn 61
Forgive Us All! 66
Reveille! 70
A Civic Song 72
Comrades! 74
In this our Century! 75
A Reply to Lord Brassey’s Advocacy of Militarism in New Zealand 77
Only Children! 80
Slowly, Slowly 82
At Modder River 85
Christ of the Andes 87
Eric 90
Fortrose Red Cross 94
Anzac Day 96
Come! 99
The Passing of Rudolf Steiner 103
A Vision and a Dream 107
Our Every Word 115
Disappointment 119
Time : Eternity 120
viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
In Antarctica 123
North Sea and Southern Cross 126
The Majestical St. Clair 128
Los Angeles 131
Birthday Greeting : The Los Angeles Hundred Years Club to Madam Severance, “Mother of Clubs” 133
A Note on George Sterling’s Magnificent Poem, “The Testimony of the Suns” 135
Catherine Breshkovska 136
Sovonya Kovalevsky 137
E. D. Morel 138
Zamenhof 140
Sir Patrick Spens 143
To Robert Burns 147
Quintin M’Kinnon 151
Mount Egmont 152
What of the Night? 153
Easter Island 154
Pitcairn Island 155
Panama Canal 156
Clement Lindley Wragge 157
President Wilson 158
True Poet of the Centuries To Be! 160
The Two Ideals 161
ix
18
CONTENTS
PAGE
O Star! 162
Let Us Arise! 163
At Last 164
Abdu’l-Baha 165
Angel of Glad Deliverance 166
Body: Soul: Spirit (Philippians iii. 14) 170
Body: Soul: Spirit (Ecclesiastes xii. 6) 17 1
Body: Soul: Spirit (1 John iii. 2) 172
Peace! Perfect Peace! 173
Anthem of the Universal 174
Notes 175
19
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Photographs reproduced through courtesy of New Zealand Government
Looking up Milford Sound from Windbound
Point ...... Frontispiece FACING PAGE
Waitomo Caves ...... 37
Lake Rotomahana: Boiling Water . . -51
Lake Ada: Milford Sound. . . . -77
Head of Lake Wakatipu . . . . .103
Lake Waikaremoana : Moonlight Effect . -123
Lake Te Anau : Middle Fiord . . . .151
Entrance to Milford Sound . . . .165
I
QUEEN OF PACIFIC SEAS!
of Pacific Seas!
Heaven guard thy regnancies !
God be thy stay !
Children of noble race,
Bright homes o'er all thy space,
Strength, valour, truth, and grace
Be thine alway !
Cross bending over thee.
Seals thy futurity
With purpose vast!
Time may profoundly toll
Ere thou discern the scroll ;
But thou shalt reach thy goal
At last! At last!
Homeland of loveliness :
Mankind shall love and bless
Zealandia !
Fate grandly understood :
Glad pioneer of good :
Radiant in brotherhood :
Zealandia 1
A
22
BEAUTIFUL ZEALANDIA!
(Air: “ Maryland! My Maryland!")
' I Southern Cross doth thee ensoul,
1 Beautiful Zealandia!
Pacific vastitudes patrol
Beautiful Zealandia !
From Rakiura’s loveliness
To far Reinga’s mystic stress,
The seals of destiny impress
Beautiful Zealandia !
Hark ! hark to the summons heavenly clear !
Beautiful Zealandia !
’Tis calling ! calling ! calling near !
Beautiful Zealandia !
Within thy dim cathedral aisles,
More exquisite than marble piles,
Enraptured tuis chant their psalms,
And mokos chime in holy calms,
While peace supernal showers its balms
Beautiful Zealandia !
Where Hinemoa loved so well:
Where pure Nga Huia stricken fell:
Where Huria dared the dreadful wave
Despairing Pakehas to save,
And won the meed Britannia gave :
Beautiful Zealandia !
23
BEAUTIFUL ZEALANDIA !
Where moas of primordial race
O'erlooked the toi plumes of grace :
Where Tarawera's elfins played
Amid the terraces they made,
All unforeseeing—unafraid :
Beautiful Zealandia !
Where waterfalls from skyey heights
Leap with their silvery delights :
Where Milford in sublime recess
Inviteth man to humbleness,
To thoughts, that warn, and soothe, and bless :
Beautiful Zealandia !
In Wanganui's fairyland :
'Mid Rotorua's terrors grand :
By Ngarauhoe's troubled throne :
On Taranaki's sculptured cone :
Deep in Waitomo's wizard zone :
Beautiful Zealandia !
Onehunga’s sunny shoals ;
Where through his clefts Waikato rolls ;
Where lovely Manapouri lies :
Where Whakatipu's domes arise
For thee the task, for thee the prize :
Beautiful Zealandia !
BEAUTIFUL ZEALANDIA!
Adown thy slopes of scented sheen
Wide o’er thy harakeke green :
Where glittering Aorangi stands,
Imperator of Austral lands ;
Around, above, the hour demands
Beautiful Zealandia !
Thy children will not bow to fear :
Love is the lord we must revere :
A wondrous heritage is ours,
For every charm supremely dowers,
And noblest heraldry empowers
Beautiful Zealandia !
Thou jewel of most rare design :
Beautiful Zealandia !
The love of all the world be thine :
Beautiful Zealandia !
Set in thy mighty solitude,
Ray forth to every olden feud
The gospel of life's brotherhood :
Beautiful Zealandia !
Hark ! hark to the summons heavenly clear!
Beautiful Zealandia !
Tis calling ! calling ! calling near !
Beautiful Zealandia !
24
A PATRIOTIC CHANT
Hal -lowed be thy des - tin - ies : Zea - lan - di - a !
UR Britain of Antipodes :
Zealandia!
All hallowed be thy destinies :
Zealandia !
Oh, fair thy forests evergreen :
Zealandia !
Encrowned with Flora's starry sheen :
Zealandia !
Sublime the Alpine chain that soars :
Zealandia !
In radiant lordship of thy shores :
Zealandia !
5
A PATRIOTIC CHANT
Thy lovely lakes, thy silvery streams,
Zealandia !
Thy fiords—they are elysian gleams :
Zealandia !
Yet more sublime and fairer far
Zealandia !
The strivings of thy spirit are :
Zealandia !
Nor Lazarus, nor Dives, thine :
Zealandia !
Nor babes enslaved in mill and mine :
Zealandia !
Nor age unsuccoured as it gropes :
Zealandia !
’Mid fluttering visions, flickering hopes
Zealandia !
But strong and true thy people stand :
Zealandia !
Thy men and women hand in hand :
Zealandia !
26
RIVERTON SANDS
for joy of the night,
Out on Riverton Sands,
Out to share in Terra’s delight,
And to list to my soul’s demands.
Winds that have raged so long,
Angry with polar spleen,
They are sleeping now, and a lullaby song
Murmurs adown the sheen.
Draped in aerial lace.
The moon, as a blissful bride,
Smiles with languorous grace
On the passionate heaving tide.
Then skyey artists paint
All the hues of the prism :
And Luna is a haloed saint
Of gorgeous mysticism !
Soft silvery clouds He low
On the near horizon’s verge,
Like summits of burnished snow
With the twining hills they merge.
27
RIVERTON SANDS
But Takitimo afar
Stands out in lordly design,
And I gaze : then turn to welcome the star
Ascending with ruddy shine.
Beautiful planet! I know
That Terra esteems thee well,
And thy warm familiar glow
Comes with brotherly spell
Nor gorgon aegis thine,
Nor banner of evil strife ;
But leadership in knowledge divine
Of ever-developing life.
And, oh, that exquisite lore,
When spirit escaped from its bars !
Joy and solace for evermore
Those memories of Mars !
Strange silhouettes appear,
In outline wavingly blurred :
Two women : and now they come anear,
And we meet with a kindly word.
On to the wreck shall it be ?
Such charm of the lucent air,
Such witchery of the sea,
On and onward I fare !
8
RIVERTON SANDS
Great kelp-trails, hither rolled
By the storm king’s furious hand,
In hieroglyphics are scrolled
Black on the heaping strand.
Swift, from abysses of space,
A meteor glints down the east :
What vistas of time and of place
With that mighty voyage have ceased !
Signs and tokens around
Of land, of sea, of sky :
-Magnificent, profound,
Universal mystery !
A barrier on the way
The wreck I cannot reach,
For a tiny creek has run out to play
Wide and full on the beach.
I will visit you again
Relic of days gone by :
Poor Wanderer that strayed out of the main
On Riverton Sands to lie ;
To muse for awhile on the brink
Of opportunity past,
Then slowly, wearily sink
To forgetfulness at last !
29
RIVERTON SANDS
The sibilant shore I retrace
Betwixt Howell’s Roads and the Kaik,
Whose rolling seasons seem to efface
All memories alike.
The Ngatimamoe were here
Only seventy years agone :
Men, women, and children of careless cheer,
Lusty in bone and brawn.
Their Maori ignorance caught
By fierce Pakeha agony :
Into the surges rushing distraught
To cool the fever . . and die .
So perished they from their place :
So briefly their story is told :
For them, for us, may the heavenly grace
Its heavenly revealings unfold !
A pleasant homestead beams forth
A beacon by day and by night :
There, noble Maori and Pakeha worth
Are blent in the service of right.
But the Kainga has passed from the scene,
As the bush has vanished away
That clothed and decked with jubilant green
The flats of Riverton Bay.
30
RIVERTON SANDS
And ho tor the vigorous clinks !
Bad miss . . or fortunate strike . .
For the breezy health of the golfing links
On the dunes of Riverton Kaik !
Ay 1 the whalers have passed from the rocky brow
Of the opposite riverside,
Where excursionists come in their thousands now
To frolic and lave in the tide !
So flourishing but to fade :
So the new supplanting the old :
Yet, by Riverton Sands one drama has played
Through centuries manifold :
Up from southerly isles,
Up in the prime of the year,
Wonderful, wonderful files
Of mutton-birds come here.
An orderly marshalled host,
Low-flying on guard for their prey,
Scores of leagues they trend by the coast
Each February-halcyon day.
Myriads though they be,
More innumerous far
The lovely little things of the sea
That lure and sustenance are.
II
RIVERTON SANDS
To look at the titis afloat,
Serried black on the tidal inflow,
Gorging each parent throat . .
Big makas, too, gulping below
And then to see on the strand
Multitudinous beauty lie ;
No shelter in water, on land ;
No refuge but to die ;
Or, on pinions of vision to go
With the birds on their homeward flight,
To dare as they dare, to know what they know
In those cherishing hours of the night;
And out from the warm underground,
By the first faint glimmer of day :
For here are the children, their food must be found
Out! and up ! and away !
Life everywhere, various, profuse,
But bestowed in seeming disdain :
So ruthlessly hostile in mutual use,
So commingled its pleasure and pain
Plan and purpose designed
By inexorable decree :
The omnipresent manifest mind,
In fiat imperative : Be !
32
RIVERTON SANDS
Still early the hour ; I will lie
On Terra’s motherly breast,
Till the holiness of the sky
Suffuses my soul unto rest.
Ye stars of infinitude !
Suns . . galaxies . . without end
Felt, though not understood,
The intimations ye send.
Yet one truth I clearly discern,
And it maketh serene and strong,
From your farthest profundities to learn
That we all to each other belong.
Always the same elements,
The same majestical laws,
Always the adequate descents :
Effect following cause.
But the marvel of you, of me,
In cycles of ceaseless change,
In the unity that is diversity
Vast as the cosmic range !
Power, order, and beauty limitless !
Ah ! the human heart must construe
From its own need to succour and bless,
That good is limitless too ;
33
RIVERTON SANDS
That the sins and sorrows of man,
And nature's deaf unconcern,
Are parts of the omnipotent plan
Beneficent as stern ;
That the evolution we see,
Is evolution for all,
In a divine equality
Which knows nor great nor small;
That only one dominance can sustain
The scope of eternity ;
That infinite love alone can explain
Life’s tragic immensity !
From the guide-post mound I arise :
Renewed in a fragrance of peace
Strengthened to work and wait for the prize
Of light that shall ever increase.
And behold ! that eloquent glow
From the realm of the midnight sun !
Our heroes ! beyond the ice and the snow,
They have heard the supreme Well Done !
Guerdon we too may attain
Each in our own degree ;
Onward and upward : this be our strain,
Grand soul of humanity !
34
RIVERTON SANDS
The sky and the sea I survey,
Athrill with Terra's delight ;
And now must I speed on my homeward way :
Dear Riverton Sands : Good-night!
35
INVERCARGILL CHIMES
T3 EAUTIFUL chimes!
-L» Dulcet, serene;
Resonant rhymes
Of the unseen.
Memories bright
Throng at your spell;
Visions of light,
Long loved and well.
Memories old,
Hopes of the morn,
Hearts buoyant . . bold
Smirched by no scorn.
Rich storied times,
Far ancient lands,
Beautiful chimes !
Your sway commands.
36
INVERCARGILL CHIMES
Sorrow and care
Call us their own,
Then ye your prayer
Softly intone :
“ All through this hour,
Lord, be our guide,
And by Thy power,
No foot shall slide.”
Floating above,
Blessing the street,
Singing of love
Solemn and sweet.
Yet in your song
Rolls sad refrain :
Murmur of wrong,
Moaning of pain,
B
37
INVERCARGILL CHIMES
Truth’s ceaseless quest,
Faith’s fond desire :
All life’s unrest
Sobs in your choir.
When we are sad,
Ye harmonise ;
If we are glad,
Ye tell the skies.
Sending afar
Tenderness, hate.
Concord and jar,
Archives of fate.
Thrilling along —
What starry climes
List to your song,
Beautiful chimes ?
Invercargill, 1894.
38
BY CLUTHA’S BANKS
on the green Reserve there stands
V-/ A eucalyptus proud and lone:
Memorial of kindly hands,
And of a poor unknown.
The tree uplifts its stately head,
With glinting tremulous leafage crowned :
A canopy of peace outspread
Above the quiet mound.
Lost in the Clutha, Long Ago !
This is the legend writ in air :
A nameless mystery of woe,
Of terror and despair.
Love’s gleams of rapturous burning joy,
The long slow bitter draught of hate,
Misunderstanding’s blear alloy.
The lance of the ingrate.
The yearning for some dear “ Perhaps,”
The ignoble pang, the glorious strife,
The high endeavour, weak relapse,
The wondrous thing called life—
39
BY CLUTHA’S BANKS
He knew it too : the universe
Was his . . to love, to dare, to scan ;
For him did stars and flowers rehearse
Their embassage to man.
He, too, was heir of all the Past,
And moulder of the great To Be :
World within world, mysterious, vast
Dread as infinity.
World within world, and doomed to bear
That isolation of the soul,
Which girds beneath the smiles we wear,
In strange and sad control.
His dream is over ; Nature claims
The elements he held in fee,
And with majestic pathos frames
His monumental tree.
Never may vandal touch impair
Its symmetry of girth and limb ;
Never be desecration there :
The tree belongs to him !
40
MEMORIES
A DOWN the manuka grove,
I ~~V In glad elysian weather,
Blossom and perfume their magic wove,
And the heaven-reaching lark carolled hymnals of love,
For those wanderers together.
She was young and bonnie and sweet,
And her hero was proud and tender ;
Like the shimmering sea, far beneath their feet,
Lay the ocean of life with harmonics complete,
And horizon of misty splendour.
Was never benigner day,
Was never more radiant dreaming ;
And the ox-eye daisies, down by the bay,
Gloried and glistened like monarchs at play,
In silvery raiment gleaming.
41
MEMORIES
He thrills at an ox-eye now,
Or at midsummer’s fragrant breathing
The grey-haired man of majestic brow
Hoards in his heart a girl’s simple vow,
With quiet immortelles enwreathing.
Serene in his stately home,
Seeming blessed with all fate's fruition;
But O on Waitati's dear slopes to roam !
And O for the thrills from yon fleecy dome !
And his youth’s ecstatic vision !
42
YESTERNIGHT
HAD a vision yesternight :
1 A burnished sea, a starry dome,
A path of quickening delight,
And then . . a home ! a home !
O window beaming welcome sweet!
O door with tender haste flung wide !
O flower of womanhood complete !
O hearts exalted, sanctified !
The wordless joy twin-spirits know
Broods o'er this scene, breathes benison
And thrills with sympathetic glow
The friend who views such twain made one
It hints of happiness divine :
Some stage of vast infinitude
That shall be thine, and thine, and mine ;
For God made all, and God is good !
We linger in the haunts of hate :
The creeds of war, of law, of trade ;
But when true mate finds perfect mate,
We long to leave that Upas shade.
43
YESTERNIGHT
Love draws us up from love’s reverse :
The only sustenance of the soul—
The secret of the universe—
Love is our source, love is our goal.
Enclosed within five walls of sense,
We question whither ? whence ? and how ?
Blind in the blaze of evidence,
The light of God’s eternal Now.
Ah, when earth’s discipline is done,
When we enclasp Death’s gentle hand
The glorious knowledge shall be won,
Life's meaning we shall understand !
Thanks, lovely matron, blessing ! blest!
Thrice-happy husband, thanks to thee !
Your unity makes manifest
Foregleams of spheric harmony !
44
A SONG OF HAPPINESS
r I A WO lives welded into one,
A And sweet existence just begun,
Blossoming with quiet grace
In their Heaven-appointed place !
Fragrances of mignonette,
Of moss rose, of violet
These exhale in calm content,
Peace, and joys beneficent.
Harmonies of other spheres
Float with the melodious years :
Rhymthic play and interplay
Of mortal with immortal sway
Edgar ! Olive ! you discern
Truths our weary world must learn,
Perchance through age-long discipline
In turbulence of blinded sin !
Twin-spirits of far mystic birth,
You walk this pilgrimage of earth,
Attracting in duality
The strength of love’s totality.
45
A SONG OF HAPPINESS
True to self, to others true,
Honour is innate with you ;
And duty—-no mere personage —
Is your life work, is your life wage.
The fruit of union such as this :
Your baby boy, your crowning bliss,
Inheritor of lustrous name,
New kinsman of mellifluous fame.
Hallam ! your child ! your very own !
Born of your flesh, and blood, and bone !
And yet a soul from other skies,
Enrobed awhile in earthly guise !
O marvel felt, not understood !
Thrice happy in your parenthood—
Be steadfast, patient, wise, and strong,
To send him forth with conquering song !
For hero he will surely be !
May he be lord of victory
In some emprise of lofty mind,
Some noble toil for humankind !
46
A SONG OF HAPPINESS
Only two years, the chubby lad !
But big, and beautiful, and glad ;
Radiant in energy, and keen
To know the whole surrounding scene
As resolute as Hannibal :
For him authority’s “You shall ! ”
Is futile ; while love's tender skill
Evokes his gracious, free " I will ! "
So pink and white, with blue blue eyes,
Rich russet locks that painters prize,
Mouth rosy, curvent, kissable, :
And dimples irresistible
O darling child ! O Happiness
Enfold for ever, guide, and bless,
Till Edgar, Olive, Hallam see
Yet more divine felicity !
Wellington , Eastertide , 1908.
47
ANDREW FLEMING
FIRST RECTOR, INVERCARGILL GRAMMAR SCHOOL
! it is over now !
i- The hope and promise of effulgent day,
The sudden blast which swept that hope away,
The voiceless fear, the anguished prayer that still
He might a thousand suppliants' moan fulfil :
All at that cold sad shrine own Heaven's mysterious will.
Soft as a tired child,
Even in the flushing of his fair renown,
He laid the burden of his honours down ;
Nor cares besieged, nor doubts could him molest
The peace of God, of man, of his own breast,
Gilt with serenest ray his passage to the blest.
And it is well with him ;
The brightest wreath which crowns this mortal strife
Pales in the glory of supernal life ;
We lingerers cannot know nor understand
Its wondrous joys, how exquisite, how grand ;
We only know ’tis sweet to sojourn in that land.
48
ANDREW FLEMING
But oh ! our human hearts !
That yearn beneath a bitter burning pain,
That cannot feel but loss his boundless gain :
Will he forget us in that blissful sphere,
Forget us, toiling, loving, mourning here,
Hoarding his every look, his every utterance dear ?
Silence within the veil!
So, from those hearts, comes forth the strong reply ;
Forget us ? No ! That were indeed to die !
While we remember he can ne’er forget:
With vision cleared from earth-mists of regret,
More present than before, he heeds us, loves us, yet !
49
LOVE DIVINELY FREE
QOFTLY dear angel Night
Comes down through the crimson and chrome,
And with tones and touches tender and light
She gathers her children home.
Flamboyant furze, sweet silvery may,
And fragrant manuka slopes,
Trill forth in one last roundelay
Their myriad joys and hopes.
Then, to the dear mother-call,
Insects and birds attune ;
And fade through many a twittering fall
The lullabies they croon.
While, breasting the iridescent air,
In strong and graceful flight,
Long lines of sea-gulls outward fare
To pinnacles of delight.
Disburdened of their bounteous flow,
The sleek and placid kine,
Now loitering, and now grazing, go
To the knolls of their favourite pine.
50
LOVE DIVINELY FREE
The lambkins cease their gambolling,
The lark’s orison is o’er—
And still the thoughts of the farmer sing
As he leans beside his door !
" Come, wife ! " he says, as he turns with a smile
That is grave and boyish too ;
" 'Twill be moonrise in a little while,
And I'd like to be out with you ! "
Her soul leaps to the light in his eyes,
Though she is sixty-nine,
And he has o’erstepped the boundaries
The sad Hebrew did assign.
Tenderly hooded and caped she goes
With her husband hand in hand ;
While softer and deeper is earth's repose
By odorous summer fanned.
Hand in hand, athrill with the sense
Of nature's benison :
Hand in hand to the hillside fence
Those lovers saunter on.
" Now comes the moon —up —up —from the sea !
O wife ! she is strangely bright !
And I think she has a message for me.
This happy, heavenly night ! ”
51
LOVE DIVINELY FREE
" A message for you ! A message for you ! "
Cries the woman with sudden fear ;
Quiver one moment his accents true :
" I will tell you, my wife ! my dear !
" I spoke with the doctor but yesterday
Of a queerness at my heart;
Kind he was ; but . . he says . . that . . I may
Very soon depart.
“ Gently ! gently ! my bonnie wife !
We can bear this, you and I ;
So blessed has been our wedded life,
So blessed it is to die ;
" To die : to lay the raiment aside
That has done due service here ;
To die : to awake and be satisfied
In a yet more wonderful sphere.
“ Clothed in the flesh we cannot know
The mysteries of that state ;
But, into the infinite we go
Assured ! elate !
“ We are of the Infinite, the All, the One ;
And, dying is passing away,
When earth’s little pilgrimage is done,
To more and more shining day.
52
LOVE DIVINELY FREE
“ So, Jessie ! my well-beloved mate !
If the mists hide me from view,
They will soon sweep aside from the outer gate,
Where I shall be waiting for you
" You are cold, my wife ! you are cold and still !
Speak, Jessie ! my dear one ! my own !
She has gone ! . . O God ! was this Thy will ?
Alone ! O God ! Alone! ”
Only a sharp brief agony . .
Then a noble gratitude,
An exquisite peace, a fluttering sigh,
And breath no more renewed !
Softly dear angel Night
Lit the bower by the hillside fence
With mystic loveliness . . tremulous . . white . .
And a halo of reverence.
Wailing was hushed when it entered that shrine,
When it gazed on the majesty
Of those beautiful faces, sealed with the sign
Of love divinely free !
c
53
BURIAL AT SEA
_T ALE man, hale woman, lightly bent
J- 1 By equal seven-and-seventy years,
Pilgrims to that far continent
Which deluged all the world with tears.
Sturdy from their Otago plain
They climbed the gangway, found their place
In cabined depths, then came again
To the beribboned parting grace.
Ceased Wellington's " Good-bye ! Good-bye ! "
And soon the harbour opened out
To ocean wave, and wind, and sky,
And order sharp and answering shout.
The miseries of travel laid
So many weary sufferers low,
Why should that husband be afraid ?
How could he blackest doom foreknow ?
Day after day, all night, all day,
Sweet, uncomplaining, gentle, wan,
Her pure existence ebbed away,
And, ere the ninth morn, she was gone !
54
BURIAL AT SEA
Silent, tear-blinded, very old,
Yet seeing all, he stood anear,
While that still form in canvas fold
Was softly laid upon its bier.
Four gallant lads on either side
Bore the sad burden slowly thence . .
He followed . . mourners multiplied
In sympathetic reverence
Ah ! there the rails were drawn apart,
There stood the priest with holy book,
And there that sorrow-smitten heart
Spent its long last despairing look,
“ Now we commit . . unto the deep .
Most sudden, dreadful, piteous sound !
He did not shudder, did not weep :
Strengthened when grief was most profound
Quiet sacred words imbued the air :
Compassionate in love divine
Blent with Gethsemane’s own prayer :
“ Father ! Thy will be done, not mine ! ”
O may such consciousness abide
Within that fondly grieving breast,
Till he shall greet her . . side by side . .
His mate . . in blissful peace and rest !
" Ruahine," May 29, 1925.
55
SONG
WRITTEN FOR THE GIRLS OF VICTORIA SCHOOL
T\ /T AIDENS of heroic race,
IVI Heritors of ancient place,
Students of a newer grace,
Happy may you be !
Trained in heart, in head, in hand,
You have purpose in the land,
Urgent call, and duty grand,
Noble destiny !
Daughters, sisters, wives to be,
Mothers of futurity,
In Victoria's name shall ye
Love and serve the right;
Weary eyes from you shall learn
Hope and gladness to discern,
Beauteous deeds and thoughts that yearn
Unto perfect light!
57
Waitomo Caves
SONG
Maoria has need of you,
Maoria will find you true
To the old, and to the new,
Faithful to the best!
Bravely, sweetly, steadfastly,
You will guides and helpers be,
Leaders in love’s majesty,
Blessing and twice blest!
Auckland, 1900.
60
GOING HOME
TENDER as stalwart, they bore him through the press
Of the tumultuous platform ; then the lad
Breathed thanks to each out of his sore distress,
And, going home, was glad.
A Maori youth, whose beauty might have fired
The glorious chisel of Praxiteles ;
But—hopeless in life's morning—he lay tired
And withered by disease.
His mother watched in silent agony,
Big tears unheeded on her furrowed face ;
Alas for her ! How easier far to die,
Might she but fill his place !
Gazing on him with Heaven-imploring eyes,
Thrilling with love’s imperious need to serve,
Smiling to his faint glances, valorous, wise—
Mother in every nerve.
59
GOING HOME
The train rolled on, instinct with kindly thought
No crashing harshness jarred the sufferer ;
And every halt the grief-worn father brought
To share a look with her.
Henley at last ! Home very soon now, dear !
And, waiting there, stood maidens and young men
With dainty-pillowed ambulance, to cheer
And guard him home again.
A lady rose—one of earth’s uncrowned queens
Aiding the mother forth, pressing her hand
With the dumb tearful eloquence that means
More than all words command.
And then the train sped on. Farewell, farewell,
Ye bleeding hearts of grand old Native race 1
Your past we know not, your future we can tell
God help you of His grace !
62
RERENGA WAIRUA
OILEN'CE within the runanga !
wJ Silence of grieving, of yearning, of fearing ;
Deep throbbing silence that waits an appearing
Solemn, beloved, from Reinga !
Flicker the flames, ever failing,
Leaping to quiver in sudden cessation
Even as the woe of that weird expectation
Leaps up in swift-smothered wailing
Shrouded in awe, the tohunga,
Far in the darkness sits sacred and lonely,
Thinking the thoughts that are known to him only :
Thought-
Salutation !
Salutation to you all ! salutation !
Salutation to you, my tribe !
Family, I salute you !
Friends, I salute you !
Friend, my Fake ha friend, / salute you !
61
RERENGA WAIRUA
Thus from the darkness comes greeting !
Fierce thrills a cry of intense recognition :
Loving, despairing—a frenzied volition
Sadly and wildly entreating !
Forward, with arms of embracing,
Rushes the noble and beautiful sister ;
Kind, but o’erpowering, they seize her, resist her,
Lowly her fainting form placing.
Struggles a tender young maiden,
Fain in the darkness his face to discover,
- *— —~ —— ~— "~ ~ ——— . ~- I Burning to follow her hero, her lover,
Whithersoever, love-laden ;
Is it you ? is it you ?
Truly is it you ?
Aue ! Aue !
They hold me ; they restrain me ;
Wonder not that I have not followed you ;
They restrain me ; they watch me ;
But I go to you !
The sun shall not rise —
The sun shall not rise —
Aue ! Aue !
She, like his sister, falls swooning,
Stalwart young friends arise, trembling and tearful,
Bear forth the helpless twain; come, mutely fearful,
Back to the unseen communing.
64
RERENGA VVAIRUA
Speak to me, the tribe !
Speak to me, the family !
Speak to me, the Pakeha !
Waiting each one on the other :
Maoris all-reverent; Pakeha biding,
Scarcely denying, and scarcely confiding—
Questions, at last, the chief's brother :
How is it with you ?
Is it well with you in that country ?
It is well with me :
My place is a good place
Have you seen Hina ?
Pukenga ? Matuka ?
Yes ; they are all with me.
Voice like the wind in waste places :
Saddest and sweetest of melody, making
Songs of the Past and the Future ; awaking
Visions of dearly loved faces !
Cries a woman ;
Have you seen my sister ?
Yes ; I have seen her.
63
RERENGA WAIRUA
Tell her my love is great toward her ,
And never will cease.
Yes ; I will tell her.
Weeping of passionate sorrow !
Weeping of sympathy, hope, and thanksgiving !
Blending of spheres ; for the dead are the living
Night is the glad shining morrow.
Asks the sceptic Pakeha :
We cannot find your book ;
Where have you concealed it ?
I concealed it —
Between the tahuhu of my house and the thatch,
Straight over as you go in at the door.
Hastens a seeker . . A finder !
Still from the darkness come answers supernal;
Then words of parting : brief, simple, fraternal,
Tender in solemn reminder.
Farewell, O tribe !
Farewell, my family !
I go!
Farewell ! farewell ! farewell !
66
RERENGA WAIRUA
Night past its noon, all dispersing,
Some to recount like scenes, number on number
One to forget, if he may, in his slumber,
Thoughts of such mystic conversing
Sudden a musket shot! Screaming !
Shouting and speeding and wild consternation !
Tribe thronging nigh to a swift conflagration !
Uira’s life torrent streaming !
Dead ? Ah, the desolate father !
Clasping the lovely wahine ! Forswearing
Atuas ! whiros ! His aged locks tearing !
(Redly those piteous tides gather !)
Dead ? The impassioned UiTa ?
Flower of the hapu —to see was to love her !
Nay I says the tohunga, gazing above her :
Gone to her true rangatira !
65
NGA HUIA
' I was the musing of Pomare's daughter,
l Queen-like Nga Huia, in far Whangaroa :
I am thine only, my Pakeha husband,
Only and always, for ever and ever
Gone from me, beautiful! gone from me, brave one !
Gone with thy warriors to fierce Whanganui !
Leaping wave, swelling sail, joying to bear thee ;
Sun, moon, and stars, all rejoicing to serve thee ;
Ah ! but I, too, must exult in thy presence !
How can I linger bereft of my heart’s blood?
So with next dawning arose the young princess,
Met the great chiefs of the noble Nga Puhi,
All but the greatest, her father, held captive
Out on the war-ship : the thunderous North Star.
Proudly she listened to stories of rivers
Foaming infuriate over huge boulders ;
Stories of forest, untracked, never ending ;
Stories of sulphurous horrible mud-holes ;
Stories of mountains, which, devil-tormented,
Fling in the face of high heaven their blasphemings.
Pour on earth's fair tender breast maledictions ;
Proudly she listened, and answered them only :
All this, and more, will I dare for my hero !
68
NGA HUIA
On, gallant horse ! with your strong steady paces. :
Hundreds of miles stretch untravelled before you
Maunga Kahia, Wairoa, Kaipara,
Bright Waitemata, and rolling Waikato,
Taupo Moana, and then Ahuriri;
Tribe telling tribe of the wonderful journey,
Braved for the first time, so grandly, so fondly
Sixty young chiefs riding out from Otaki—
Cavalcade royal for pioneer royal—
Honour and gladness around her, within her,
Thus Whanganui was reached by Nga Huia !
Sweet, sweet the heart-song deliciously chanted
All through the glowing emparadised seasons ;
Lovely the floweret that burst into being,
Fair as her kindred in old English gardens :
Beautiful Nota, in soft-vowelled Maori :
North Star, in baptism and holy thanksgiving.
Letters from Home, from the old English gardens
Come to inherit a great benefaction !
Ah ! the bewailing, the pitiful pleading,
Promises perjured, and eager departure ;
Evil days, frantic nights, one ray delusive
Torturing on to the blackness of darkness ;
Never the summons came, never the token,
Only an oversea chatter belauding
Elwes, his mansion, and wide cultured acres.
67
NGA HUIA
Out from the chasm of her soul's desolation
Huia yearned northward to father and people :
Journeyed again the wild length of the island ;
Bearing her innocent sweet golden lily ;
Wearing the image, her tribe's richest jewel,
Once, as her love gift, a sign of devotion
Where she gave all in majestic confiding.
Now the heitiki becomes your atua,
Pomare muttered, and death is its omen !
Low drooped the stately head, faded the glory
Of each resplendent charm, faded the sorrow :
Nga Huia ceased from Te Ika a Maui !
Soon, weary Pomare, savage but faithful,
Doomed in his love and pride, slain by her anguish,
Laid his great heart in the grave of his daughter !
Aue ! thrice-orphaned ! aue ! Nota Elzves!
Scarce had the century mounted its zenith,
(Lurid and ominous now in its setting !)
When that frail infancy quivered to knowledge,
Woke to mortality’s bitterest questions :
Craft and ferocity coldly triumphant,
Strength growing stronger by fierce spoliation,
Piteous need amid opulent birthright,
Mutual hatreds throughout man’s dominion.
70
NGA HUIA
Problem inscrutable ? Nay ; the solution
Gleams through the mists of the loneliest sorrow,
Hints of far different stages of being :
Cause that shall win a divine vindication—
Failure that truly is shining achievement—
Time but a beat in eternity's rhythmus—
Love the one verity, one consummation !
Imercargill, 1892.
D
69
JUGGERNAUT
|3 ITTER winds, cruel winds,
-D Howling from Erebus,
Angry demoniac winds,
Scourged the forsaken street.
Into alluring warmth,
By an enticingly
Sheltered secluded door,
Joe ran, with naked feet;
Not to be comforted,
Not to be clothed and fed ;
Only to hurry with
Message malevolent.
73
Lake Rotomahana : Boiling Wateh
JUGGERNAUT
Poor little red-raw feet:
Soon they ran forth again ;
Dirty rags fluttering,
Baby lips oath-besprent.
Wrapped in a newspaper,
(Oh the black shame of it!)
Held fast amid the storm :
Poison and infamy.
Terrible motherhood !
Childhood more terrible !
What is their voice to thine,
Juggernaut . . Licensee ?
76
SAVED!
OAVED on that horrible night,
Saved by a brother man,
Rejoice and expand in the light
As thy tremulous spirit can !
But, O for the limitless tide
That sweeps to yet blacker woe,
To a doom that will not be satisfied,
That says : It must ever be so !
Awake ! arise in thy might!
Great soul of humanity !
Lead thy poor little blind ones aright :
To the truth that will set them free
The self-knowledge able to quell
Every foe without and within,
So radiant angels of heaven may dwell
Where now are but dens of sin !
Great soul of humanity !
Behold Thy children enslaved
By weakness, by ignorance . . make them free !
Tell them : Ye shall be saved !
75
SAITH THE LORD
" 1 WILL avenge," saith the Lord,
1 " I will repay ! "
Sharp is the stroke of His sword,
To save, or slay !
Wickedness swells, waxing bold,
Insensate, blind ;
Hating the weak and the old
It robbed, maligned.
Foreboding not, in its wrath,
The torments vain ;
The downward, desolate path
The brand of Cain !
“ I will avenge,” saith the Lord,
“ I will repay ! ”
Escape His supreme award
No creature may!
78
SAITH THE LORD
Loving, and joyous, and true,
His purpose runs ;
Soul of the marvels we view,
Atoms and suns.
And earth shall be heaven when man
Has learned to read
The glorious, beautiful plan
With consonant heed.
As links in the cosmic chain,
We intertwine ;
And only the general gain
Is mine, is thine.
To serve is the grand decree,
Each helping all—
The loftiest liberty
Which can befall !
77
SAITH THE LORD
Each for all, and all for each ;
God's brotherhood !
When at last God’s living speech
Is understood !
O harmony of the spheres !
O song of songs !
To him who your symphony hears
Your joy belongs !
But for them whose dull despite
Marks not your strain,
Awaits in abysmal night
Other refrain !
“ I will avenge,” saith the Lord,
“ I will repay ! ”
Life reapeth its own reward,
Ever and aye !
80
BIRTHRIGHT
PARAPHRASED FROM MICHAEL FLURSCHEIM’S
“ CLUE TO THE ECONOMIC LABYRINTH ”
A DREAM of an arid wilderness,
1\- And of myriads athirst,
Of hopes that promised to soothe and bless,
Yet bitterly cursed ;
A dream of a weary multitude
That, phalanx on phalanx, pressed on ;
Till men, and women, and children, stood . .
All haggard and wan . .
On the marge of a river flowing wide,
And gazed on a wondrous scene :
Glad slopes, rich vales, fields of harvest-tide,
And colonnades green !
" We starve ! we starve ! " cried the grey, gaunt men;
“ We starve with abundance near !
Heeds any one there ? Again ! Again !
Does any one hear ? "
How the tender women drooped and failed
In that terrible despair !
How the withering children weakly wailed
For succouring care !
79
BIRTHRIGHT
“We are men ! ” rang out a clarion cry
“ No longer we hesitate,
Suffering our beloveds to die,
At Paradise Gate ! "
And out from the many millions stept
The Greathearts, valiant and true,
And into the surging water leapt—
Pray God they win through !
The current was cold, and fierce and strong
And some in its whirlpools sank ;
Some on its waves were swept along—
But some gained the bank !
Athrill with fragrance and melody.
Renewed in strength and delight,
They flung the bounty of shrub and tree,
From dawning till night;
Day after day, in love’s own zeal,
They flung to the other shore ;
Rejoiced that the masses there might feel
Fierce hunger no more.
Alas for the starving multitude !
Scarce any profit had they :
The fruits—(the piteously needed food !)
Were lost on the way !
82
BIRTHRIGHT
For riotous wind, and splashing wave,
Seized them with mocking swell;
And the few that to the people drave
Destroyingly fell !
" Oh, who will a better mode devise,
To send us the fruits across ;
And blind no more our poor streaming eyes
With such waste and loss ? ”
" Nay ! nay ! " was answered. " How better far
That we go to that beauteous land !
And nought could one single soul debar
Were the river spanned !
“ Let us arise from our sore distress !
We have means, we have power, we have skill,
To build a bridge unto happiness,
And, Brothers ! We Will ! ”
A dream ! But behold that land of grace :
Our own, our inheritance,
The glad birthright of the human race,
Unrolls its expanse.
So near ! so near ! (though wild torrents fall,
And the skies are with tempest riven) ;
Grant vision and pure resolve to us all
Our Father in Heaven !
81
OMNIA VINCIT AMOR
A MEDITATION ON HENLEY’S “ INVICTUS
TV T ASTER and captain, sore beset,
IV J. Thrice-valorous and proudly wise,
For us the dreaming toil and fret,
For you the glad awakened eyes.
Still, as we blindly blunder on
Through terrors of world-disarray,
Faint glimpses . . glimmerings of dawn . .
Hint even to us of coming day,
When circumstance shall yield to man
His royalty, so long obsessed ;
And chance rule neither boon nor ban,
But law be everywhere confessed.
We sow, we reap, in rage and woe ;
We make " this place of wrath and tears " ;
Our lovely planet yet shall know
The joy of God-enraptured spheres.
84
LO! THE GLAD MORN!
and wearied without and within
i. The round Earth rolls ;
Matrix of Man, is she hurt by the sin
Of human souls ?
Thought-waves of terrible, horrible hate,
Of murder-lust,
Jar they her innermost chords that vibrate
To love and trust ?
Mysteries primal: electrical force
And magnetism :
Marvels sustaining her unhalting course
Through the abysm ;
Ether : the infinite secret of God,
Effect and cause
Of all we can know . . may things of the sod
Affront such laws ?
Mere things of the sod, yet each with a spark
Of cosmic fire :
Free to stray into depths of the dark,
Free to aspire.
83
LO ! THE GLAD MORN !
Choosing to welter in Tartarus' spumes,
Lauding the choice ;
Maddened . . inebriate . . choked by hell-fumes . .
While fiends rejoice.
Choosing to follow the heavenly gleam,
Though it may lead
Through loneliness, and scornful disesteem
Of word and deed.
Steadfastly following, nor fear nor doubt
Vexing the way ;
Glimpsing a radiant widening out
To perfect day.
Singing the songs of the angels, these share
Angelic cheer ;
Praying with the Anointed, in His prayer
They know Him near.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven : Fatherhood
For one, for all;
Thy will be done on Earth : beatitude
That shall befall.
Through long centuries man has crucified
The Prince of Peace ;
Vainly therefore, has He lived, has He died,
That hate might cease ?
86
LO ! THE GLAD MORN !
Myriad homes where little children wail
In cruel need ;
Vast areas with workers stunted . . pale
And lords of greed ;
Cities of infamous pride and display,
That dare to flaunt
Riotous luxury, even while they prey
On woe and want ;
Submerged Tenth seething in Stygian shame
Of vice inbred ;
White slavery : uttermost phrase of blame
That can be said ;
Armies and navies on land, on the sea,
In sea, in air,
Fearing . . boasting . . evoking . . enmity
Everywhere ;
Cabinet ruptures, and men marched away,
Knowing not why ;
Drilled to mutilate, to torture, to slay,
And doomed to die.
Agonised planet! lone Sorrowful Star !
Our woes are thine :
Tainting, empoisoning, powers that are
In thee divine.
85
LO ! THE GLAD MORN
Order, the grand everlasting decree,
Will yet entrance ;
Harmony will bring to us and to thee
Deliverance.
Chaos of ignorance, insensate might
Of selfishness,
Darkening will vanish, and laws of light
Will guide and bless.
Ever the solitary pioneers
Serenely bold,
Piercing the dolorous vista of years
Have bliss foretold.
Ever the true patriotism has seen
One flag unfurled :
Hand clasping hand, doves bearing olive green
Over the world.
Not vainly our Elder Brother devised
His gift of peace ;
Not vainly His love was sacrificed
That hate might cease.
Black is the night, and yet more blackly loom
The swelling clouds :
Dreadnoughts dreading all things in demon gloom
Huzzaing crowds . .
88
LO ! THE GLAD MORN !
Mists before sunrise : sick phantoms of fate :
Lo ! the glad mom !
Beautiful, fragrant, benignant, elate,
Already born !
North meeting South, and West mingling with East,
We yet shall see
Forth from all childish barriers released :
Fraternity.
Joyaunce in mutual help to ascend,
Taking the place
Of crass hostile jealousies eager to spend
Blood of the race.
Listen, sad Earth ! The psalm of the spheres
Lacks one sweet tone
Long, long awaited ; swiftly it anears :
It is thine own!!
River ton, 1913.
E
87
FORGIVE US ALL!
QERVANTS of a far syndicate,
vJ Masters of many-handed toil,
Seven days weekly, early and late,
Boring for oil, for oil.
Sweltering under that torrid sun :
Now boys ! get up your steam !
Ever beginning, never done
Is it a ghastly dream ?
No ! for the oil for ever flows !
No ! for the world proclaims its need !
The worker comes, the worker goes,
The work must rush full speed !
Work all the day and every day,
Exhausted sleep, half-bolted food
No time to think, no time to play ;
Dare we pronounce this good ?
Our sons, our brothers, they are men,
Not machines to be button-pressed
Heroes, exiles, who now and then
Madden for change and rest.
90
FORGIVE US ALL 1
Can we wonder, shall we blame,
We doomed him, shall we abhor ?
If some hot-headed youth exclaim :
Let’s hope for another war !
A fine old war that will call us out
Over the seas with a run ;
No matter what the row’s about,
We’d have a bit of fun !
Alas for the nations in despair !
For the myriad-mangling crime !
For the heart of mankind torn and bare !
For the horrors of the slime !
A bit of fun ? O mothers that wept
Their meek shattered lives away !
And mothers whose stricken reason swept
Them down to babbling decay !
O fathers ! too strengthless or too old
For killing and being killed ;
Fighting famine, disease, and cold,
On tiny farms untilled !
89
FORGIVE US ALL !
O children ! (Lord Jesus ! forgive us all !)
Too famished to wail for bread !
One only mercy could befall :
Speedily to be dead !
O returned soldiers ! we saw you last,
So young, so bonnie, so bright!
O remnant! crippled, shrapnelled, gassed
Haunted by sound and sight !
A fine old war that will call us out
Over the seas with a run ;
Whatever the stupid row’s about,
We’ll have a hit of fun !
Glee of the nethermost abyss ;
Blasphemy of the pit;
Manslaughter , devil’s laughter is :
Long long ago ’twas writ !
Weary, restive, hot-headed boy,
Never, ah ! never again,
May echo of diabolical joy
Rouse you to its refrain !
92
FORGIVE US ALL !
We are insensate, we are blind . .
All-Father ! open our eyes,
Humbly, reverently to find
That which around us lies :
Expression of Thee, omnipotent,
Eternal, changeless, and sure ;
Every atom a testament
Bearing Thy signature.
Sun and system and universe,
Galactic glories of space,
Order, wisdom, and truth rehearse
To every time and place
Life and soul of the cosmic life,
Within us as without,
Wherefore our fratricidal strife ?
Our Heaven-affronting doubt ?
All-Father ! pitying, loving all !
We shall solve this mystery,
Barrier, bond, and shackle will fall
When we wake to knowledge of Thee !
" Ruahine," June 20, 1925.
91
REVEILLE!
(Air : “ Men of Harlech ! ”
1\ /I EN and women, every nation,
IVA Every clime and every station,
Rouse ye for the grand ovation :
Peace . . is coming near !
Speed the news o’er land and water,
Noble son and noble daughter !
Tell to all who have besought her :
Peace . . will soon be here !
Centuries have waited :
Vision unabated ;
Angel of divine desire,
They knew thy coming fated :
Welcome ! welcome ! welcome ! welcome
Heaven and Earth will now be mated,
Joy-bells in black night’s surcease
Reveille ring for Peace !
94
REVEILLE !
Thinking, labouring, entreating,
Praying for that happy meeting,
For that high fraternal greeting,
Peace . . is coming near !
Human enmities forsaking,
Lovely Earth to gladness waking,
Yes, at last, the New Morn breaking ;
Peace . . will soon be here !
Centuries have waited :
Vision unabated :
Angel of divine desire,
They knew thy coming fated :
Welcome ! welcome ! welcome ! welcome !
Heaven and Earth will now be mated,
Joy-bells in black night’s surcease
Reveille ring for Peace !
93
A CIVIC SONG
r I majesty of law,
A The marvels of design,
They thrill the soul with awe
Ineffable, divine :
So may we use our noblest powers
In zeal to make Heaven's order ours
The duties of the State
Are common heritage ;
And none may idly wait
While others effort wage ;
Each man, each woman, must attain
To some good for the civic gain.
96
A CIVIC SONG
All for the commonwealth,
The commonwealth for all;
Hope, leisure, radiant health
Not chances that befall
Success in bold unswerving greed ;
But human right, as human need.
Work on ! with hearts elate !
True righteousness shall be !
Work on ! we build a State
Of glorious destiny !
Old errors pass with passing night,
New Earth, new Heaven, come with the light!
95
COMRADES!
T)ERPLEXITY, danger, and sorrow surrounding,
1 Sharp flints on the pathway, and clouds overhead ;
Still faring straight forward, with courage abounding,
Even though, in heart silences, tears may be shed
For life has suggested its infinite meaning,
Has hinted the wondrous omnipotent plan ;
And earth's darkest shadows but faintly are screening
The grand never-ending progression of man
Come out from the darkness, O sister ! O brother !
Come out from the ignorant gloom of despair !
We journey together, we need one another ;
Come, comrades ! rejoicingly on let us fare !
O gladness and glory ! our Father beholding
Each lowliest one, shall we linger or fall ?
His power is sustaining, His love is enfolding
Come ! onward and upward! and God for us all!
98
IN THIS OUR CENTURY!
A LTRUISTS in every land,
Ix. Thinkers, doers, hand in hand
Paeans raise in chorus grand :
Fraternal unity !
Thrills the vast organic plan
Loving brotherhood of man —
Thrills with power : we dare . . we can
Achieve our destiny !
Raise the human standard now,
Human principles avow,
Note on every human brow
The charter of the free !
Comrades ! calmly, nobly great !
Operate ! co-operate !
Build the universal state
In this our century !
Individual gain and pride,
Brood chaotic ! fall aside !
God and Alan are unified,
And other there is none !
Let us to this knowledge grow,
Then will peace and joyaunce show
Why we came, and wherefore go :
Infinitude in One !
97
A REPLY TO LORD BRASSEY’S ADVOCACY OF MILITARISM IN NEW ZEALAND
LAD pioneers we of fraternity,
* — y And our home is the home of liberty,
We are free !
Britons of Auster, we fear not a foe :
Brothers, and comrades, and lovers we know
Where we go !
The Queen Mother cries : What tale are ye told ?
Come heed me, my children, bonnie and bold ;
I am old !
The years of millennium have not begun ;
Evil is, everywhere under the sun,
Thought and done.
Brothers, and comrades, and lovers have ye ?
Ay, ay ; but men’s sooth is the treachery
Of the sea.
Prepare ye beneath your radiant skies :
Howling hurricane animosities
Will arise !
101
Lake Ada : Milford Sound
A REPLY
Ships in your harbours and forts on your shores,
Man them, and gun them, or ere the storm roars
At your doors !
Never an enemy ? never a fear ?
Hearken . . and mutterings of anger you’ll hear
Very near !
Children, my children, your danger is mine ;
Ready and valiant, foul weather or fine,
We combine !
Tax we our toilers, and tax we our toil;
Money entrenchments will make, or will foil,
War’s turmoil!
Choose we our beautiful gallant young men ;
Drill them for pillage and carnage, and then
Drill again !
Drill them . . the sons of our women ..to be
Human machinery demons may see
And have glee !
Mothers, and sisters, and sweethearts, and wives ?
Yes ; on such innocent desolate lives . .
Glory thrives !
Glory most precious ! and commerce supreme !
Things that are real; not visions that gleam
In a dream !
104
A REPLY
Commerce in glory, and glory in trade ;
Thus wealth, and power, and distinction are made
And displayed !
Practical, solid, and ever in view,
These the ideals we proudly pursue
I and you !
Low the response wafts, deliberate, grand
Other ideals our homage command,
Motherland !
Christchurch, February 1897.
103
ONLY CHILDREN!
IN MEMORY OF IDA BRADLEY
TI TE have loved our gentle leader,
V V We revere and love her still
Jesus ! Mighty Interceder !
Her desire may we fulfil !
Shed Thy comfort on our sorrow,
Soothe our hearts with Thine own balm,
Make us strong to speed the morrow
Of the glad angelic psalm !
How she told the Shepherds' story :
" Peace on earth, goodwill to men,'
Till we almost heard its glory
Echoed from the stars again !
106
ONLY CHILDREN !
How she sweetly, fondly pleaded
For the bonds of brotherhood ;
For the little children needed
In that bondage fair and good !
Only children ! but we treasure,
With true love that cannot cease,
Her true love beyond all measure,
Her pure ministry of peace.
Help us, Lord ! to follow ever
In the pathway that she trod !
Bless each little child’s endeavour
Thus to serve the Peace of God !
Amen !
Christchurch, 1913.
F
107
SLOWLY, SLOWLY
C' be shuddering grey
' ■/ the pines ;
of the bay
V* arts from the long sand lines.
>Vhat did a the Cuban shore,
And what did ye hear yesterday ?
aw the blaze, and we heard the roar,
-Jell agape for its prey !
Thousands and thousands of bright bonnie boys,
And men in their beautiful prime,
Maddening in the horrible noise !
Gladdening in lust of crime !
Fighting for liberty', fighting to save
A proud old nation’s name,
Fighting to help the suffering brave,
Fighting for greed and for fame ;
\ng as living machines must fight
When governments will it so,
Kamring neither the wrong nor the right,
Their orders all that they know ;
108
SLOWLY, SLOWLY
Fighting as fiercely as demons may,
(Bonnie boys and beautiful men !)
Though their wrath in a moment could pass away,
Cleared by the stroke of a pen !
Massacring many a loving heart,
And many a marvellous brain ;
With the Church of Christ standing idly apart,
Or mumbling its prayers o’er the slain !
Far, by the empty firesides, wait
The mothers, the sisters, the wives,
And the silent sweethearts desolate
In their tender, innocent lives !
While the world insanely staggers on
Through the paths of rivalry ;
Cheating and hating, driving and drawn.
And fighting to be free ;
Heeding not, in its blind distress,
In the anguish of its pain,
The fair highway unto happiness
Of infinite domain :
109
SLOWLY, SLOWLY
The road of service . . each for all,
— - • —j And all for every one . .
That leads to the realm where prince and thrall.
And rich and poor, are none.
Where love alone is king, and lord,
And state, and property ;
Its own exceeding great reward,
Its own grand liberty.
O light, now widening to the day !
O sea, so solemn, so vast !
Ye have seen ! ye have heard ! Yet that fair highway
We shall surely find at last!
March 1898.
110
AT MODDER RIVER
T N far Otago,
J- Green was. the grass, so green ;
Ah! cool the waters purled
Big bowery clefts between ;
And life was gladness, for glad was the world;
But this ! What may it mean ?
His lord, his hero,
Fell from him yestereve—
Quivering, headless, his master !
And they would not let him grieve ;
But mounted him, spurred him, fiercer and faster ;
Draw near, thou last reprieve !
Faster and faster,
When the blood-red sun upsprang,
With hot and evil glare,
With hideous rush and clang,
With the roaring . . screaming . . of fiends in the air ;
Surely a tui sang !
111
AT MODDER RIVER
Fiercer and fiercer,
Amid fellow-steeds, amid men ;
Amid them, against them, over them,
Wheeling and plunging again ;
The fallen, the dying, galloping over them !
Ay me, Wairuna glen !
Beautiful Kelpie . .
An emissary of hell
Smote him, shattered his hocks,
And with one wild leap he fell !
(His rider limped to the sheltering rocks) . .
O heart ! what wouldst thou tell ?
Pitiful anguish !
The love and joy he has known,
The tendance, the happy pride
All vanished ! he is alone !
Suffering, mourning, horrified ;
Tears, tears, and deathly moan !
Yes, he is weeping !
A horse . . " A good old grey " . .
Great tears roll down his face
From eyes that were true alway ;
He feels as a man would feel in his place ;
Does he think ? God shall say !
November 28, 1899.
112
CHRIST OF THE ANDES
and Argentine, fair sister lands
V —' That evermore defied their sisterhood,
And thrust, with cruel sacrilegious hands,
Fierce mutual wrong with every vengeful mood ;
War was their industry, their creed was hate,
And ruin was their swift on-marching fate 1
But, soft! a new thought stirs in Argentine !
So new, so strange, and so exceeding bold,
That all the world shall say : This thought hath been
Nigh twenty centuries our dream ! So old
The angel song that shepherds heard by night;
So long have men refused to heed aright!
Then take the molten cannon, gifted son
Of Buenos Ayres ! mould the bronze anew !
Heaven guide your skill! At last the work is done . .
Resplendent, wonderful, divinely true !
A statue of the deathless Nazarene :
Jesus the Christ, the thought of Argentine !
113
CHRIST OF THE ANDES
Ah ! never woman failed Him when He trod
His brief path to the garden, to the rood,
Teaching the boundless fatherhood of God,
And mankind’s universal brotherhood ;
Revealing love in its sublimest test;
Bestowing peace, His first and last bequest!
So, woman’s voice besought in Argentine :
High on Andean boundary should stand
This wondrous statue, arbiter between
Twin sisters, sacred guardian of each land.
And Chile . . Argentine . . rejoiced to hear
The words of inspiration, brave and clear !
Long was the journey, very rough the way
By gorge and winding pass to that vast height;
And winds were wild, and skies were cold and grey ;
Yet still, obedient to the inner light,
They upward toiled . . then builded strong and deep
’Graved granite on a plateau of the steep.
And here they stand, Chile and Argentine,
On frontier line opposed in warlike state !
Proudly war's music animates the scene,
Loudly war's cannonades reverberate ;
But no war demon of the pit is here :
Men look on men, and feel the angels near !
114
CHRIST OF THE ANDES
Now slowly, reverentially, the shroud
From “ Cristo de los Andes ” they withdraw !
While, lo ! the sunshine bursts its prisoning cloud,
And, 'mid a blaze of wonderment and awe,
A mighty utterance thrills on the air,
And soul with soul commingles in that prayer !
Silence and ecstasy ! A throbbing sense
Of interpenetrating holiness !
Then consecration rings to the immense :
Thou symbol of the Prince of Peace ! Oh, bless
Argentine ! bless Chile ! bless lands beside !
Bless the whole world with peace that shall abide !
Sweet sobbing women throng the pedestal:
Brave servitors of war fling on the ground
War’s weapons, rush with outstretched arms, and fall
On friends . . not foes . . with glad embrace
enwound;
Comrades enraptured, brothers of one race,
Drawn unto heaven by that uplifted face !
O marvellous emblem of the Prince of Peace !
The immortal thought that is enshrined in thee
Shall yet to all the nations bring release
From fratricidal guilt and misery !
Soon may Earth heed the anthem that has been
Thrice-grandly heard by Chile-Argentine !
115
ERIC
ON TELEPHONE DUTY,
DURING A TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT IN FRANCE HE FELL
ISTENIXG . . listening . . he heard
-L/ A sweet inexorable word.
Our boy, amid a myriad boys;
Our pride, our hope, our joy of joys.
O myriad boys ! O theirs, and ours !
O hate that still demands, devours !
Ye black festivities of hell
Faith firmly utters : All is well !
Faith : most impassioned, most profound,
When fiercest agonies surround
Shall we deplore his swift release
From Moloch’s ravening blasphemies ?
So pure, so noble, Love's own hand
Has led him to the Beauteous Land ;
Nor severed him from love below :
He knows our pain, he feels our woe ;
116
ERIC
He glimpses the majestic plan,
Of Wisdom Absolute, for Man.
It may be that our anguished race
Must sink to horror's deepmost place ;
That only there, in hell's abyss,
Man will discern the path to bliss ;
At last will learn aright to read,
Aright to live, Christ's simple creed :
" Or God, or Mammon, ye must choose ! "
All good to win, all good to lose.
“ Do unto others as ye would
They do to you ! ” . . life’s brotherhood
“ Love one another, little host;
He serveth best who loveth most.”
“ Rather a millstone in the seas
Than to offend the least of these.”
117
ERIC
Christ’s simple creed ! a child might know
The one sure way wherein to go.
Doctrine and dogma frown not there,
Nor clamour rival shrines of prayer.
Yet, stern as simple : " Hypocrite,
Scribe, Pharisee . . your doom is writ! "
God is not mocked. The words are plain
“ That which ye sow ye reap again.”
Cunning, suspicion, envy, greed,
Anger, revenge . . have been our seed,
And we are harvesting ! Dread thought !
More dread if we be still untaught!
Faith firmly utters ; All is well;
In God’s eternity we dwell.
Chaos of self, and sense, and will,
Must a tremendous work fulfil.
118
ERIC
But, when the cosmic task is done,
All life shall know that life is one.
One with thanksgivings to rehearse
Throughout the whole glad universe.
One in infinitude of range,
One in sublime progressive change.
One in the Giver and the given,
One in the vastitude of heaven.
With clearer vision, wider skies.
Our Eric ampler truth descries.
We wait till we, too, shall have heard
That sweet inexorable word.
Auckland, 1917.
119
FORTROSE RED CROSS
Chorus
Red Cross come before you :
1 Wives and daughters, sisters, mothers ;
Helping husbands, sons, and brothers ;
Knowing you will help them too !
Solo I.
Far away from sweet home gladness,
Far from quiet fireside joys :
Heroes, martyrs, in world-madness,
Living . . dying . . Help our Boys !
Chorus.
Solo 11.
Centuries shall tell thy story,
Marvellous Gallipoli !
Never, till fair earth grows hoary,
Can thy name forgotten be !
Chorus
Solo HI.
Pain and havoc desolating
Belgian meadows, fields of France,
While their litanies of hating
Mock at all deliverance ;
Chorus.
120
FORTROSE RED CROSS
Solo IV.
Of that agony outspreading,
Of that wilderness of woe,
Poison-breathing, mud-embedding,
Dare we think and answer " No " ?
Chorus
Solo V.
Over, under, land and water,
Demon force would reign supreme,
Terrorise, torment, and slaughter,
In a mad, unholy dream !
Chorus
Solo VI.
There shall be divine awaking :
Goodness is supreme alone !
Let us speed Heaven's sunlight breaking
O'er the world . . and o'er our own !
Chorus
Audience ( standing )
Fortrose Red Cross ! We will help you 1
Wives and daughters, sisters, mothers !
We will help our sons and brothers—
We are Fortrose Red Cross, too !
Fortrose, August 1918.
121
ANZAC DAY
QLOW! slow! slow!
wJ Anzac remnants ; dirge of woe ;
Laughing, stalwart lads they went —
Haunted now, in memory pent;
O the horrors that have been !
O infernos they have seen !
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Thronged and gazing street they know ;
But no cheer salutes their way,
No mad jubilance to-day :
Every footfall of their tread
Links the living with the dead.
Slow ! slow 1 slow 1
By the cenotaph they go ;
One, unseeing, guided there,
Tribute lays with reverent care ;
Pattern of true bravery,
Blind, beloved, and honoured, he.
122
ANZAC DAY
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Phantoms flicker to and fro :
Hundred, thousand, million, blind
By the fiat of their kind :
Men our Father made to be
Temples of Divinity.
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Now, as in the long ago
Told and untold centuries,
From all lands of all the seas,
Tortured anguished human cries
To the highest heaven arise.
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Nations ebb and nations flow :
Seeking by poor puny might,
Domination over right;
In that Moloch-Mammon sway
Finding their own sure decay.
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Must it evermore be so ?
Nay ! our lovely Earth is one !
Every daughter, every son,
Yet shall look abroad to see
Glad benignant unity.
G
123
ANZAC DAY
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Sow and reap, and reap and sow ;
But the lesson shall be learned,
And the guerdon shall be earned ;
North and south, the east, the west
Kindly, friendly, loving, blest.
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Proudly then shall trumpets blow ;
Peace and righteousness shall stand
Arbiters in every land ;
Noble women, noble men,
Robe dear Earth in radiance then
Slow ! slow ! slow !
Anzac remnants ; dirge of woe ;
Ye attest the hideous crime,
7 Shame and infamy of time ;
Ye suggest, inspire, prelude
Universal Brotherhood.
Auckland , April 25, 1922.
124
COME!
' I vision of the dying saint,
A The dream of the philosopher,
Earth's fountain-note in every plaint,
Sad Earth, all-ignorant of her ;
Peace ! glorious Peace ! she will descend
When Love is ruler of the sphere,
Revealing man to man as friend,
And building Heaven’s own kingdom here
Love's servitor, she will assuage
The groans and travail of the soil:
Creation’s piteous heritage
Of patient woe ’mid man’s turmoil.
Love’s minnesinger, she will fuse
The moan, the wail, the dirge of life,
In her serene symphonic muse,
And chant the joyousness of life.
Love’s counsellor, she will descry
The secret of each element;
And render ocean, land, and sky
To human thought subservient.
125
COME !
Black howling horrors of the pole,
Sahara’s fiercely languorous breath,
Poor India’s swamps . . she will ensoul .
Subdue . . direct . . in her bright faith
Electric height, volcanic deep,
Dread seismic menace she will scan
All spells that Nature now doth keep-
And give their governance to Man.
Strong-visioned, truly humbly wise,
Thrice-reverent, she will gaze afar,
Still noting vaster harmonies,
And stars beyond the farthest star.
Devoutly studious of the weed,
The stone, the wave, the insect’s hum
Perchance in some faint sign to read
The mystery of the cosmic sum.
And evermore attuned in awe
Of One, omniscient, infinite ;
Glad in the trust that perfect law
Ordains, designs, and rules aright.
Ah ! children of that happy time ;
Proud victors in grand emperies ;
Ye conquerors of want and crime,
And myriad-multiple disease ;
126
COME !
Brave soldiers of humanity ;
True comrades of your fellow-men ;
Life ! Life ! not Death ! will be your cry,
And Earth shall know her heroes then !
Far other ministries we wage ;
Pale prisoners we, without release,
Blinded by tears do we presage
The glorious victories of Peace.
For Love seems far, and hate is here :
Hyena, vulture, serpent hate ;
Hate breeding hate, revenge, and fear ;
And linking us in coils of fate.
Love ! speed thy coming ! speed to save
A world so madly passion-torn !
Warm rich sweet life we, too, would crave
Wandering in wastes of death and scorn
O Love ! O Love ! thine, only thine,
The power to bid Earth's wrongs surcease !
Come ! in thy majesty divine !
Come ! thou, and thy evangel: Peace !
127
Hi \i' of Lake Wakatipu.
THE PASSING OF RUDOLF STEINER
March 30, 1925
/*~* ONE from our firmament,
Gone to thine own far height :
Even in thine ascent,
Great soul! illume our night !
So marvellous thy gaze,
Deciphering life’s scroll,
Up from its pristine phase,
On to its godlike goal;
Up through that vastitude,
That dark, unshapen void,
Tracing the Thought imbued,
Viewing the Word employed ;
Up to the consciousness
Of man upon his earth ;
Up, up, to truths that bless
In welfare . . and in dearth
Up to the prescience
Of brain and heart and soul
Unfoldment, to immense
New cycling of the whole ;
131
THE PASSING OF RUDOLF STEINER
Up ! Thy previsioning
Knew neither bound nor stay:
It saw for everything
The onward, upward way!
Gone from our firmament,
Gone to thine own far height:
Even in thine ascent,
Great soul! illume our night !
As reverent as wise,
As gentle as profound,
Thou heardest harmonies
Through Time and Space resound
One universal law,
And its fulfilment clear,
Suffused thy life with awe,
Prophet! apostle ! seer !
Thou sawest the cosmic plan,
In spirals stem and strange
Transmuting earth, and man,
To heavenly-perfect change.
132
THE PASSING OF RUDOLF STEINER
So may we leam, like thee.
To work with zealous might
For love's fraternity,
All through our darksome night
So may we serve, adore, :
The very Christ of God
His love our endless store,
His service our abode !
Gone from our firmament ,
Gone to thine own far height,
Even in thine ascent,
Great soul ! illume our night !
Sorely are we bereaved ;
But we rejoice for thee,
In all we have received
Blessing thy memory ;
And conscious that thy place,
Amid angelic peers,
Will not preclude thy grace
Toward our mortal years.
133
THE PASSING OF RUDOLF STEINER
Heaven grant those years be spent
In faithful studenthood,
Our every impulse bent
To earnest, active good ;
No craving self within :
The living Christ alone
Be regnant, and our kin
Be all who seek His throne ;
Patient whate’er befall,
Steadfast in gloom and gleam :
Then for us, too, the call . .
Transition . . joy supreme !
Gone from our firmament.
Gone to thine own far height.
Leader beneficent !
Still speed us on to Light !
Auckland, April 1925
134
A VISION AND A DREAM
INSCRIBED TO A. W.
1. THE VISION
TRACING an ever-lengthening street,
A Detached, aloof, alone,
Deaf to the march of many feet,
And heedless of mine own,
Sudden I found me in the press
Of some great city's core :
Clamours of verdict, storm, and stress
That swelled in smothered roar ;
Surgings of multitudinous ire :
Men, women, speeding past,
Rushing with terrible desire
To view Her at the last.
Listless I turned as swept the crowd,
And followed it afar :
Listless, inert, wrapt in a shroud
Of selfness . . bleak . . bizarre.
135
THE VISION
Vast Hall of Justice ! Noble pile,
With majesty encrowned !
Porticoes many ; many an aisle
Of colonnades surround ;
Portieres crimson, crimson walls
In sumptuous design ;
Curtain before a platform falls :
All eyes strain there, save mine
Mighty the throng, and mighty rage
Pervades the atmosphere ;
I, only I, have nought to wage
But apathy most drear.
Slowly the pictured screen uprolls,
And judge and court await
Her, who has roused a million souls
To frenzied scorn and hate,
Opens a door : feared, loathed, reviled,
A horror of the night:
Prisoner ? You ? My child ! My child !
My daughter of delight!
136
THE VISION
Mad ! And your crime is ignorance,
Whatever you have done !
Thus I bewailed ; then, in a trance,
My girl and I seemed one.
Self from its citadel passed thence,
To rule me nevermore ;
My very life ebbed with intense
Absorption . . as of yore.
Being within my being ! Sure,
Serene, and holy yet !
Nature no further could endure :
I swooned in bloody sweat.
Silence profound ! No multitude,
No court, no prisoner ;
But, in her own right mind, She stood,
Enrobed in white, anear !
Daughter beloved ! My very own !
I clasped her to my breast
Rapturously . . and still a moan
Was in my bliss expressed :
137
THE VISION
Child ! Omy child ! Such gladness stings /
Such joy is pain for me !
Whispered an angel friend : These things
An allegory be.
Ignorant in deaf wilfulness,
And mad in blind dismay,
Stumbles thy world . . but Love can bless
Can show the perfect way.
Small is thy sphere ? Each single thought,
Malefic or benign,
Wings to the summit it has sought ;
Heed thou each thought of thine.
Child of thy heart deem any child :
Love thou the human race :
So SHALT THOU NEVER BE ENISLED
From God’s all-loving grace.
138
2. THE DREAM
High noon, and keen, deriding glare,
The heavy-winged enfevered air
Bore devastation on its every blast;
Along the endless roadway passed
Poor pilgrim faces seared by toil and pain,
Their vision dimmed with ineffectual strain
And I amidst them wandered on
As one who saw but heeded not.
What meant their pain to me ?
Suffering was mine, mine misery.
And what their joylessness ?
Me gladsome hope would never bless.
I yielded not one pitying thought,
Only I wandered on
In apathetic fantasy.
Widened the weary way,
And a broad river, nobly spanned,
There sinuous glittering lay ;
Alone I crossed : no welcoming hand,
No kindly voice, gave me goodwill;
O'er emerald paths by umbrageous leafage graced
That stately park I traced,
Heedless and listless still;
139
THE DREAM
Regal gateways I wandered through,
And lo ! a mansion glorified the view,
A mansion set in beauteousness !
Swift impulse urged me on to press
Past wide parterres of gorgeous flowers,
Past radiant waters bloom o'erspread,
Past lawns by trees encompassed :
Known trees, and strange majestic trees ;
Past bowers . .
Fair bowers of dalliance and ease.
Then anguish took me : Why was there no sound
In all the enchanted ground ?
No swishing flow, no rustling leaf,
No insect hum, no litany
From the resplendent sky ?
Mine own unuttered grief
Unutterable ? I dared nor turn nor stay
I could but press the onward way.
All trembling I essayed
The marble steps of a vast colonnade
Pictures and statues thralled my sight,
Colour and form so exquisitely bright
Fain had I lingered there ;
But, on either side,
Ranged loftily, fiercely magnified,
Portraiture of transcendent power
On me did glower,
140
H
THE DREAM
And I was startled into need of love .
Of love . . of love . .
Whose lightest breath would far outweigh
The grandeurs of that awful day.
A corridor extending far
In dim perspective, rooms opening thereon
This side and that, their every door ajar,
And silence suffocating me the while !
Passing within the nearest room
My footsteps sank in velvet pile,
And, all around, there shone
Burnished mirrors that reflected Me :
High, low, from every place,
My tortured face
Looked torturingly on Me.
Ah ! then ! I knew my doom !
I was in the Voiceless Land,
And knew I could not die ;
Yet, knowing this too well,
My soul sent forth the cry :
O God ! O God ! Let me die !
I was in Hell . .
Punished for all the calm disdain
Which I had felt, and shown,
Toward joylessness, and toil, and pain,
Other than mine own.
141
THE DREAM
Let me die ! O let me die !
At last the cry awakened me ;
A long long hour was spanned
In terrified review;
Then, slumbering again,
I dreamed the dream anew,
Again awaking in immeasurable pain :
Again to sleep, and dream, and know
Hell's retributive woe.
142
OUR EVERY WORD
\A/ E n ° te ' discuss > and criticise,
V V We judge, and we condemn ;
'Twere better if we heard His sighs,
And kissed His garment's hem.
Poor human goodness may mislead,
If weakness with it blend,
Then, in its hour of utmost need,
Find not a human friend.
And, strong and sure self-righteousness
That scorns the sinner’s lot,
May hear, in its own dark recess,
, The challenging Judge not !
Long is the path of our ascent,
Its perils fierce and strange,
Our ignorance its fundament,
Our self its widest range.
Let us be pitiful like Him
Who knows and loves each one;
And Who, before the seraphim,
Will yet declare : Well done !
143
OUR EVERY WORD
Our ignorance He will dispel
In His transcendent light;
Our self He will for ever quell
By His benignant might,
But we must wake to know Him near,
We must receive the Guest :
The Lord of Lords, here, even here :
Ah, Heaven within the breast!
His peace will evermore abide,
His counsel will be plain,
If we but hold Him as our Guide
Through pleasure and through pain
Come unto Me : Come unto Me :
And I will give you rest :
How marvellous the majesty !
How tender the behest !
O weary Earth . . distracted . . torn !
O weary, warring men !
Ere new millennia be bom,
These words will ring again,
From stricken land to stricken land,
Evangel ever new ;
And all shall heed the dear command,
Shall deem the promise true.
144
OUR EVERY WORD
Be ours to speed the coming tide
Of brotherly goodwill:
Each deed, each word, each thought applied
High service to fulfil:
Brave, patient, faithful, ever kind,
Since we are all akin :
One brooding universal Mind
Around us and within.
Inscrutable the mystery :
Even angels may not know
The currents of that boundless sea,
Their flow and interflow.
And humbly let us bow the head,
Discerning what we are :
One with the dust on which we tread,
One with the brightest star.
The dust, the star, may disappear,
Like our mortality ;
But, life which made the form cohere,
Life cannot cease to be.
Our life ? ascending . . if we will,
Descending . . if we choose ;
But never stagnant, never still,
To use or to abuse.
145
OUR EVERY WORD
Responsibility so dread
Shall we profanely dare ?
Ere now one reckless word has fed
Abysses of despair.
So may we guard our inmost thought
So may we guard our lips.
That never utterance be fraught
With any soul's eclipse
Rejoicing in the good we see,
We aid that good's increase ;
Trusting our neighbour's amity,
We propagate world peace
Co-operators with Thee, Lord,
Inhabiting Thy shrine,
Be consecrate our even' word
To Thee, O Love Divine !
146
DISAPPOINTMENT
" used to disappointment! " so we say :
Are we aggrieved when thus we tell the tale
Soured or embittered . . like a child at play
Who sulks and blames when his ambitions fail ?
" Quite used to disappointment ! " Nevermore
Such words when we have glimpsed the plan divine ;
We love, we trust, we worship, we adore,
We pray : Father ! Thy will be done ; not mine !
147
TIME : ETERNITY
' I lordly days of long ago,
1 How keen ! how full of wonderment,
Ecstatic joy, terrific woe,
Wild fantasies that came and went!
Long days of childhood, long, long days
Of quaint exploring ignorance ;
Vast weeks ; the month : an endless phase ;
The year : a measureless expanse.
Now : days and weeks and months and years
Flit with accelerating speed ;
While earthly pleasures, hopes, and fears,
Grow clamant for the Time they need.
For Time is changeful, relative,
Responsive to the human mood,
From human thought derivative,
Yet humanly misunderstood.
We dwell in sumptuous palaces,
And squander wealth on senseless play ;
We herd in hovels of disease,
And groan our dismal lives away.
148
TIME : ETERNITY
All warily we plot and plan
To win the largesse of the crowd,
And circumvent our brother man
With less ferocity endowed.
We hoard our treasures and enchain
Our hearts in this illusive sphere ;
Even though all hearts beat one refrain
Brief is the space we tarry here !
Eternity ! the Thought Divine !
They live in thee ; the Christ-like few ;
Their light doth in the darkness shine,
Their dream will mould this world anew
Ah ! they have vision with its zeal,
And they proclaim what they foresee
The rapture of the commonweal,
The splendour of fraternity.
Time can nor flout nor flatter these :
Enfranchised of the Infinite
They toil, amid Earth’s lands and seas,
Strong, resolute, serene, love-lit.
Eternity ! the only true !
Since thou all truth dost comprehend !
For ever old, for ever new ;
Without beginning, without end !
149
TIME : ETERNITY
Could we but consciously abide
In thy reality, our thought
Would bloom in deeds thrice-beautified
By faith, and hope, and love inwrought.
Eternity ! the only good !
Since all good is comprised in thee !
The hierarchs of angelhood
Love, worship, in humility !
Shall we be proud, presuming, vain,
Who bend before thy fleeting shade ;
Who strive and struggle for the gain
From dust brought forth, to dust conveyed ?
Eternity ! the Thought of God !
Inexplicably constant Now !
The soul would seek Thee far abroad,
But whispers awestruck : Here art Thou !
Nor past nor future : only Now !
Nor far nor farther : only Here !
O sisters ! brothers ! let us bow,
And, with the angels, love, revere !
150
LAKf WAIKAREMOANA : MOONLIGHI EFFECT
IN ANTARCTICA
March 1912
r I polar lure whose blandishments
1 Are night, and cold, and hurricane,
Crevasses dread, volcanic vents,
Strange horrors of disease and pain,
Hunger that yet must nauseate,
Nerve-racking toil, repose forsworn,
Renunciation, towering fate
Onlooking with satanic scorn.
True heroes they : the sacred quest
Of knowledge was their brave intent :
From Earth’s securest holds to wrest
Some archives of her long ascent;
True heroes and true victors they :
Their goal attained, their quest fulfilled . .
But, oh, thou polar lure at play !
Oh, world with grief and pity thrilled !
153
IN ANTARCTICA
Not wholly grieve, vast humankind !
Nor dream such sacrifice is vain :
Nor be in pride and sorrow blind :
Our great loss may be greatest gain
Sunk in the sloughs of matter, we
Adore false gods, we strain and strive
For self’s mad ignobility,
And scarcely keep our souls alive.
The loathly lust of gold and power,
The crime of war, the shielded shame
That battens on the tender flower
Of womanhood : all these our blame.
But, as the depth so is the height :
Through ghastly heritage of woe,
Through error blundering to light,
We yet life’s brotherhood shall know.
154
IN ANTARCTICA
Honour the Terra Nova's men !
With us, or lost to human sight;
Honour them ! honour them ! again :
Honour ! and emulate their might!
The Southern Cross which o’er us bends .
In mystic charge . . that other cross
The tent . . the cairns . . benignly blends
With heavenly import of our loss.
Be comforted ! be comforted !
Sweet broken hearts to them so dear !
Only the weary vesture dead . .
Only the coil can perish here.
And they who lead in lofty grace,
Who pioneer the spiral way
Onward and upward for the race,
Ah, how divinely blessed are they !
155
NORTH STAR AND SOUTHERN CROSS
"DY Aden's bluff
-D The sudden twilight fades in trembling sheen,
And ocean sighs in slumberous commune
With night and mystery.
Up from the north
New stars arise, and constellations vast,
While—on the opposing rim—inverted, strange,
Low hangs the Southern Cross !
O sign of woe !
Of pain ! of desolation absolute !
Eloi ! Eloi ! lama sabacthani !
O cross of Jesus Christ!
O sign of bliss !
Of meaning, in the realm of the Unseen,
Transcending every mortal agony
With love’s infinitude !
Farewell! farewell!
Henceforward we may look on thee no more ;
But memory will hold thee consecrate,
Sublime evangelist!
156
NORTH STAR AND SOUTHERN CROSS
Hail! Polar Star !
Co-guardian out of far profundity . .
Emblem of rectitude serene and strong
Our Terra knows thee well !
She knows thee well:
Unswerving in her awful pilgrimage ;
Instinct with order, law, and verity,
She answers to thy gaze.
Beloved orb !
The North Star and the Southern Cross are hers ;
—————— —— —— - j In glad responsiveness to them she thrills
On her etheric way.
But we are sad :
Beset by doubt, we falter on our course ;
Forgetting past eternities, and blind
To marvellous destiny :
One sway divine
For every atom of the cosmic whole !
Spirit with body, mind with matter, blent:
One origin ! one end !
The Star . . the Cross
Proclaim their message, and rejoicing serve ;
Steadfast, rejoicing always, may we serve
Infinite Truth and Love !
Bab-el-Mandeb, 1904.
157
THE MAJESTICAL ST. CLAIR
' I A HE August sun beams splendour,
I The loitering wind breathes balm,
And the waters their praises render
In a myriad-sparkling calm.
So serenely brilliant the river,
The majestical St. Clair !
So blandly its beauties deliver
Their charms to the exquisite air !
While steamers sound hoarse salutation
As they glide in opposing train :
Coal of some far-away station,
Superior’s ore and grain ;
Meeting with proud recognition
Throbbing East and towering West ;
A human-divine volition
On this mediterranean breast!
Port Huron and Sarnia smiling,
As neighbours and kindred may ;
Republic, Dominion, compiling
Rich lore for the coming day !
158
I
THE MAJESTICAL ST. CLAIR
The day of mankind's awaking
To the gladness of being one ;
Black dreams of the night forsaking
In the blissful era begun !
O river, so placidly speeding
Beneficent, grand, to the sea ;
Unknowing the course . . or unheeding .
There is wrath, there is anguish, for thee !
Happy waters, thus myriad-sparkling,
Rejoice in the sun to-day ;
Distracted, infuriate, darkling,
Ye must fiercely dare on your way :
The rapids, delirious, dancing
To the verge of unspeakable doom ;
The leap of despair, entrancing
With beautiful, terrible gloom ;
The thunderous crash, and the roaring
Of nature in agony ;
The quivering mists upsoaring,
Enveiling that tragedy ;
159
THE MAJESTICAL ST. CLAIR
The greedy whirls, ravening ever ; :
Then tremulous peace, and a shrine
Lo ! over and under the river,
God's sign and His countersign !
Brief quietude . . then the gorge prison
Mad with horrors of rage and hate ;
And the waters, like men uprisen
Dealing death's defiance to fate !
Escape, and still widening passage,
And a lake's fair freedom again ;
Then a stately channel and presage
Of surely approaching the main !
Bright the cities on either border,
Fairy bright the thousand isles ;
And wondrous the mystical order
That has guided my many miles !
O thou ocean ! O thou ocean !
All my separate wandering past,
Blending with cosmic motion,
I flow unto thee at last !
Port Huron, 1906.
160
LOS ANGELES
T OS ANGELES ! Los Angeles !
J—/ Fair skies bend lovingly o'er thee ;
Sierra Madre meets thy gaze
With proud serene benignity ;
For thee Pacific softly sways
His zephyrs’ benedicite.
Los Angeles ! Los Angeles !
Great destiny is surely thine,
Thou city born of prayer and praise
Enlinked in majesty divine ;
Present and past prepare thy ways,
Thy future teems with rare design
Los Angeles ! Los Angeles !
Dost thou thy portents ponder well :
Nature’s emblazonry, the maze
Of human energies that swell
Resistless through the rushing days,
The signs our changing times foretell ?
161
LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles ! Los Angeles !
Thrice blessed, thrice happy as thou art,
Swing out again the gladsome phrase
Of carillons, above the mart,
Above the street, harmonic lays
Commingling . . yet above, apart !
Los Angeles ! Los Angeles !
Uplift the lives that here abide
Their measured span ; thine anthems raise
With choirs invisible to guide
Those hearts, those souls, to loftier phase,
And loftier yet: strong ! purified !
Los Angeles , 1907.
162
BIRTHDAY GREETING The Los Angeles Hundred Years Club to Madam Severance, “Mother of Clubs”
OUR own dear Madam Severance ! rr-M n tx 1 t ir ,» 1 ■ .1-1
*—' The " Hundred Years " claim you this day
With loving pride and reverence,
And at your feet rejoice to lay
These fragrant pretty pink carnations,
With eighty-eight congratulations !
Mother of Clubs ! our President
Honorary, honoured alway !
Your high unfaltering intent
Illumes for us the onward way ;
Your precept joined to practice ever
Sheds benison on our endeavour.
We see you eighty-eight years young,
Clear-eyed in soul and body too ;
With every faculty upstrung
To recognise and aid the true ;
Far, far beyond discrimination
Of race, or creed, or wealth, or station.
163
ODE OF THE LOS ANGELES CLUB
The whole world is akin to you,
The whole round world that rolls along
In ancient strife and rancours new,
And shameful triumphs of the strong,
In hate, and fear, and rage volcanic,
In power and privilege satanic,
You view the vast chaotic scene,
You hear its shrieks of pain and woe,
And yet you blench not: calm, serene,
Discerning what the angels know :
A purpose steadily evolving,
A meaning every mystery solving
Long, long may you continue here,
Advancing to immortal youth
Through day, and week, and month, and year :
Of ever-brightening love and truth
The Hundred Years Club’s inspiration,
Beloved in city, state, and nation !
Lus Angela, January 1908
164
A NOTE ON GEORGE STERLING'S MAGNIFICENT POEM, "THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS"
r I brains, the yearning lips, to dust;
J- But you, brave questioner, and we . .
Immortal . . may ascend to be
Co-workers in the cosmic trust,
Evolving sun, and grander sun,
Through cycles of creative will ;
Yet infinitely blinded still,
Before the All, the Whole, the One.
•35
CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKA
ONE in that boundless wilderness,
J— j Hunger or cold or knout may kill !
Nay ; thy unconquerable will—
(Serenely strong to love and bless,
Regnant through all the anguished past
Of death-in-life to life-in-death)
Shall smile proud greeting : mortal breath
Divinely used, forspent at last !
Immortal, in thy native sphere,
Thou wilt renew the human quest;
Not thine to drowse in saintly rest
While myriads are moaning here !
Thou who hast loved the people, thou
Wilt yet behold the people free,
God’s children in God’s liberty.
Even as thou strivest for them now,
Babushka !
Boston, 1904.
166
SOVONYA KOVALEVSKY IN MEMORIAM
f~* REAT souls illume the years,
VJT And send their benison
Through myriad hopes and fears
That follow on.
Gone from their starry height;
But shining still, serene,
Immortal in the light
Which they have seen.
167
E. D. MOREL
(1873-1924)
T)OOR Congo millions ! mutilated, slain,
i. That golden treasuries might hugely swell ;
With none to heed such purchase, and such gain,
Until faint quivering echoes reached Morel !
Knight-errant of humanity : he stood
Before the world, invincible, alone ;
And challenging the sway of demonhood
He foiled the evil purpose of a throne.
Then—well assured that man must never be
The slave of man—he taught the will for peace,
For open truth, for vibrant amity,
That yet shall win war’s absolute surcease.
True patriot : impassioned, clarion-clear,
Upholding high the standard of his race !
True statesman of all states, or far, or near :
Aflame for justice in the lowliest place !
Intrepid in his own integrity,
How should he dream that he could be construed
As rebel traitor, doomed to infamy,
To prison depths with blackest vice imbued ?
138
E. D. MOREL
The infamy is theirs who laid him low
Because they feared his fearless radiant soul ;
Their shame oncoming centuries will know,
Will loathe, will grieve o'er the Britannic scroll.
Six months of hunger, cold, and sleeplessness,
Then restoration to his name and sphere ;
But never, never, could officialdom redress
His suffering ’mid horrors vile as drear.
Yet he, high-hearted, leader in the strife
For human betterment, pressed surely on
From victory to victory ; his life :
Promise and presage of approaching dawn.
Be of good cheer : truth, justice, will prevail !
Death is nothing ! Death will not stop us ! Proud
His paean : not for such as he to fail;
The cause will go on ! Yea ! though hearts be bowed !
Morel has left that injured tenement,
With all its burdens of chaotic night
Has done the task whereunto he was sent,
And gently, blessedly, gone home to Light.
Auckland, January 1925
169
ZAMENHOF
(1859-1917)
PIONEER of pioneers !
Thy soul abhorred " the Babel din " ;
Yet shared the sighs, the groans, the tears,
Of all the multitudes therein.
The planet was thy motherland,
Earth's family thy brotherhood,
Thy prayer : Grant us to understand
Our possible beatitude !
Thy prayer was work, thy work was prayer
Through lonely days and arduous nights
Of many years ; then, everywhere,
Thy prayer seemed fructified in praise.
Hew down the barriers ! lay them low !
Such walls do but estrange, divide ;
Nia kara lingvo soon will show
Our race encircled, unified !
So sang thy cohorts in the zeal
Of wondrous new-found amities,
Of hope for universal weal
And joyaunce over land and seas.
170
ZAMENHOF
How swelled the chant, anear, afar,
Re-echoing that Bethlehem night!
How gleamed the Esperanto star
In yearly congress of delight!
And thou : extolled, beloved, revered,
How modest was thy splendour then !
How thy vast brother-love endeared,
Thou humblest, happiest of men !
Alas ! far other scenes dispelled
The gladness of those beauteous ways,
And hymns of hate and scorn were held
More sacred than thy hymns of praise
For rumours flitted there and here,
From continent to continent,
Inspiring jealousy and fear :
Black brood of their own element.
They lit the war of wars at last:
War waged to end war, prattled they ;
And hapless myriads were massed
Opposingly . . to die . . or slay.
171
ZAMENHOF
In ceaseless pain, in boundless woe,
That heart, which throbbed for all mankind
Had struggled still to beat, and show
The better way to deaf and blind.
But now it burst in agony
Too terrible for mortal frame ;
L'amata Majstro ceased to be !
Our Zamenhof was but a name !
On earth he ceased. In other spheres
He lives, and loves, and labours still,
Illumined, like his lofty peers,
The cosmic purpose to fulfil
His name be treasured, his desire
Be radiant in our accord ;
So may we hear the angel choir
Salute the New Day of the Lord !
172
SIR PATRICK SPENS THE STORY OF ARCHER'S BEAUTIFUL PICTURE EXHIBITED IN THE ART GALLERY, AUCKLAND
' I hear the hungry lappin' tide,
1 An' they look far far atowre ;
But thro' the simmer gloamin' glide
Nae sails tae Aberdour !
Leal maidens twa, close by the brae
That rins doon tae the strand,
Whence gaed that sair, that bitter day,
The bonnie gallant band !
Sae princely sweet the damozel,
In velvet gown wine-red ;
But oh, the fear she downa tell,
An' the thocht o' mickle dread !
173
SIR PATRICK SPENS
Alack ! alack ! her mither sits
Wi' fair an' stately mien ;
But there's anguish in the hands she knits
There's despair in her wild wide e'en !
A simple lass ahint them a’
She prays her heart may break,
As she hides the burnin' tears that fa'
For her lord, an' her dear luve's sake !
Oh long long may the ladies kame
Their gowden hair ;
But Sir Patrick Spens he will win hame
Nae mair ! nae mair 1
An' O my man ! my ain guid man !
Sae dear, sae dear tae me !
On the heather knowe where oor troth began
Fain wad I dee !
The mastiff lyin’ on the sward,
Alert in seemin’ sleep,
He minds him o' the faithfu' ward
His maister bade him keep
Faintly glimmers a wee wee mune
Far in the cloudy lift;
Does she ken hoo the white sea-horses rin
When their reins hae fa'en adrift ?
174
K
SIR PATRICK SPENS
O Noroway ! O Noroway !
O Ladye Margaret!
Wassail was in the land that day
The King and his Scots bride met !
That day, that week, an' anither week,
Kind amitie waxed high ;
Then a Norse lord as a churl did speak . .
An' Sir Patrick did reply !
Pause was the charge, an’ the varlet rude ;
But the answer it was flame !
An’ werena the Scots lords fierce an’ prood
As they hasted tae the faem !
Gurlin' water an' whistlin' win'
They bode wad speed them fast;
An', sune as the mirk mirk morn cam in,
They plunged foment the blast !
Fareweel, fareweel, Queen Margaret !
An' happy may ye be !
There's truth an’ valour in Norseland yet
But hey for oor ain countrie !
Oor ain countrie, oor ain countrie, An’ the leal hearts a’ oor ain ;
Hey an' ho for oor ain countrie, An' oor welcome back again !
175
SIR PATRICK SPENS
King Alexander sits his lane
In fair Dunfermline ha',
He muses on the noble train
That took his bairn awa.
Sudden he starts wi’ tremblin’ fear ;
For, ilk in his richtfu’ place.
Sir Patrick Spens an' his band appear
Wi' wan an' waverin' grace !
An’ awesome swish strikes cauld an’ wet
An awesome win’ whirls roon’ —
A ringin' cry : For Scotland yet !
Tells hoo brave men droon !
O waly, waly Scotland thro' !
YValy for mony an' mony a day !
Strong an' gallant, warm an' true,
An' weel beloved were they !
176
TO ROBERT BURNS CENTENARY ADDRESS, JULY 1896
"TAEAR Robert Burns ! Fair fa' the sicht
-Lv Leal-hearted men and ladies bricht,
Forgatherin’ here this July nicht,
Wi’ thochts o’ thee,
An’ greetin’s tae thy royal hicht
O’ poesie !
Dear pleughman lad ! sae sair bestead,
Sae hardly winnin' daily bread,
Shieldin' thy loved anes frae the dread
O’ puirtith’s blast,
An’ layin’ low thy beauteous head
In want at last!
Oh ! Scotland's pride and Scotland's shame !
They feasted thee with empty fame,
Then coldly saw neglect and blame
Thy genius mask ;
And flung to thee a hated name
And hated task !
177
TO ROBERT BURNS
Yet sweet and clear thy liltin' rose
Abune thy cares, abune thy woes ;
Nae sordid littleness tae gloze
Thy music knew ;
Even tae thy short day’s waefu’ close
The song was true.
The love o’ every livin’ thing
Flamed i’ thy heart an’ gar’d thee sing ;
The flow'ret o' the cauldrife spring
Was dear tae thee ;
A' nature dwelt in thee . . did wing
Thy minstrelsie !
Thy poet inspiration ran
Abraid the wide creative plan,
An’ . . spite o’ Fortune’s witherin’ ban . .
An' cruel jeer . .
Proclaimed the Brotherhood o’ Man
Was drawin’ near.
178
TO ROBERT BURNS
Puir Scotia trem'led i' the grip
O' sauntly lees an' censorship ;
Ye raivelled oot the “ hangman’s whip ”
Within her borders !
An' bade auld Nickie Bendie skip
Till further orders !
Still, deepest reverence was thine,
An’ lowliest worship at the shrine
O' simple worth . . in shade or shine . .
In cot or ha ! . .
An' o' the Mystery Divine
That cares for a'
Such glowin' gifts o' heart an' mind
To passion's servitude inclined !
Dreigh, dreigh the tale ! Be oors tae find
Thy tenderest care
Within the world's great heart entwined . .
For evermair !
179
TO ROBERT BURNS
We baud thy Highland Mary dear
We ken thy Jean was aye sincere,
We see puir Jessie’s hidden tear
When thou wast low,
An’ bless her for the lovin’ cheer
She did bestow.
Oh, Robert ! thou hast never died !
Thy spirit canna be denied,
Mair an' mair dearly 'tis descried
An' hallowed mair :
A glory, meetin’ far an’ wide
Baith praise an’ prayer.
Praise for thy peerless gift of song,
Praise for thy manhood true and strong
Praise for thy quenchless hate of wrong
And love of good ;
Prayer for thy vision . . century long
Man’s Brotherhood !
180
Lake Ti Anau : Middli Fiord
QUINTIN M'KINNON FIRST GUIDE OVER "THE FINEST WALK IN THE WORLD"
AKE that he loved ! the secret is thine own,
L/ Austerely held within thy mighty breast,
And vain the hope, the gallant grieving quest
To win it from thee . . it is thine alone !
Remembrance may translate thy undertone :
Ouintin M'Kinnon ! Man who loved me best !
One with me evermore and everblest !
But he is lost to us, and we bemoan.
On Titan marble, snow-white, glacier-laid
Long aeons ere the birth of weary Time,
Kind mourning hands have graved his epitaph ;
The relic gleams beneath Lone Island's shade,
Te Anau is his sepulchre sublime,
Her proudest peak his glorious cenotaph.
183
MOUNT EGMONT TARANAKI
QUPREMELY beautiful he reigns alone,
v J) Communing with high heaven, and sending far
The lore he learns from sun and moon and star ;
Glad pastures yield obeisance to his throne ;
The opulent bush enrobes him zone by zone ;
And snows that never touch of time mav mar
Crown him with radiance, while ocean's jar
Fades on his margent west to dulcet moan.
O Taranaki ! pyramid of peace !
From age-long anguish thou hast gained release
Nor hidden fires torment thee now, nor throe
Of anger rends thee in horrific woe ;
But calmly glorious dost thou dispense
Thy benedicites of reverence !
184
WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
us the lengthening days, the angelic smile
A Of roses, and aerial melodies ;
But night malefic lowers on Arctic seas,
Black night which never dreams of dawn beguile,
Bergs clash on bergs with shattering resile,
Whirlwinds with hate's own fury rage and freeze,
The cruel sky pours baleful ministries,
And all the demons of the Pole revile.
Son of the Vikings, what is there thy fate ?
Has Karskoe engulfed thee and thy band ?
No ! Nansen, no ! we trust 'tis well with thee !
Thy wife, thy nation, all the world, await
In hope thou yet wilt gloriously command
The inmost secret of the Polar Sea !
Waikiwi, November 1893
185
EASTER ISLAND
in a mystery of solitude,
Relic, perchance, of continents unseen
For aeons past . . suggesting what has been . .
But, unresponsive to man’s questioning mood,
Perplexing him with hints misunderstood;
With carven throngs, vastest of all terrene ;
And puny islanders of witless mien,
Abashed not by the amazing multitude.
How laughed the vine, how blushed the happy rose
Where menace now the circumpolar snows ;
How joyously our isles clasped kindred hands
With Madagascar and Columbian lands,
Those weird sardonic statues might disclose
Could we unlock the lore their speech commands,
186
PITCAIRN ISLAND
T J PHEAVED from vast and dire profundities
V> Thou smilest now in calm pellucid space,
Serene in the lone grandeur of thy grace,
Sole watch-tower of illimitable seas,
Link between hemispheric distances ;
Yet as if yesterday no chart had trace
Of thee, dear wondrous isle, none knew thy face :
Storied by centuries of centuries !
Thy human tale ? Embodied hate and woe
Despoiled and desecrated thee, until
They spelled the name of Jesus, took His yoke
Upon them, learned His peace and His goodwill ;
The blessedness, O Pitcairn, of thy folk,
Would that the seething raging world might know !
“ Ruahine” May 30, 1925.
187
PANAMA CANAL
OUBLIME conceptions of the human brain
That passed adown the years from man to man
Until they grew to utterance : We can
Divide Earth's axial continent ; enchain
Pacific and Atlantic, main with main ;
And lay on one pestiferous curse our ban ;
Sublime the dream, sublime the accomplished plan—
May any future to such heights attain ?
Shall man remake the land, connect the seas,
Give health in place of maddening disease,
And win not to still higher heights than these ?
The impulse of the infinite says : Aay I
Man is but childlike on his darkened way,
He will be godlike in eternal day !
“ Ruahine," June 10, 1925
188
CLEMENT LINDLEY WRAGGE
(1852-1922)
T E dwelt in the immensities ; his soul
-L 1 Bathed in the splendours of infinitude
With awe and reverence and love endued
His vision swept from heavenly pole to pole,
Where suns, and galaxies of suns, unroll
Marvels too glorious for mortal mood ;
Yet, more and vaster blazonries he viewed,
And found, in utter humbleness, his goal.
Church of the Mighty Universe ! thy creed,
Thy simple kindly creed alone he taught:
The mystery of undeveloped good,
The coming gladness of life’s brotherhood ;
And now within thy veil, Earth's mission wrought,
O Church ! he worshippeth, and hath his meed.
Auckland, 1922.
189
PRESIDENT WILSON
1
A CENTURY of millions in his care !
-L\. And he : assailed by gibes and calumnies,
And Molochism of all the lands and seas,
Invoked by mutual hates and fears that dare
To goad our world-woe on to world-despair,
While Pity’s self implores him to appease ;
Her soul by waging war's red devilries :
Alone ! with potency that none may share !
True patriot of all the round earth's space,
True friend and brother of the human race,
Illumined, chosen in this direst need,
This consummation of satanic creed ;
Nay ; not alone ! He stands on holy ground,
And shining hosts encompass him around !
Fortrose, November 1916.
190
PRESIDENT WILSON
II
Far visioned as high hearted ! all aflame
With sacred resolution to fulfil
The olden song ! apostle of goodwill!
Thus to the diplomatic hall he came,
And there was met by claim and counter-claim
Fluent in seeming wisdom, trained in skill,
But adamantine to his sense of ill,
And scanning “ the idealist ” with blame.
He failed ? Supremely great his victory :
Even as he saw, the world begins to see
The righteousness of truth and amity ;
Therefore —the last entrancing call avowed
With I am ready—myriads are proud
Of him whose body rests within that shroud.
Auckland, February 1924.
191
TRUE POET OF THE CENTURIES TO BE!
A ~\ T ALT WHITMAN ! prophet! bard of pioneers !
V V Maimed tortured hosts in war's red maelstrom caught,
He loved and served ; his brotherhood besought
The lowliest and loftiest as peers,
And chanted for our duller denser ears
Strange intonations of resilient thought:
Strophes and antistrophes soul-inwrought
With echoes from the music of the spheres.
In the perspective of infinitude
He sang the universal : evil, good ;
Life’s vast procession, death’s kind interlude ; ;
Time ; space ; boundless perfectibility ;
Joy, joy for all ! So God-inspired was he :
True poet of the centuries to be !
192
THE TWO IDEALS
T 7ENUS DE MEDICIS ! You pretty thing !
V Petty as pretty your insipid face,
And your allurements of mock-modest grace
Are but the despotism you seek to fling
Athwart our globe, from peasant unto king
Fain to animalise the human race,
And hinder its attainment of true place
Far, far beyond the thoughts that round you cling
But Venus ! " Statue that enchants the world ! "
Venus of Milo ! glorious art thou !
The flag of womanhood thou hast unfurled,
Dear prototype ! ah, wave it widely now !
Lead men, lead women, to thy holy height
Of spiritual splendour and delight !
L
193
O STAR!
f\ STAR, whereon we spend our fleeting dav
ln puerilities of mine and thine,
In pagan fear, and hurt, and hate malign ;
Pursuing happiness with downward gaze,
Affronting thee with ingrate sour dispraise ;
Too dull to note the omnipresent sign
Of life eternal, infinite, divine,
Displayed by thee in myriad marvellous ways,—
O lovely Terra ! Daughter of the sun !
In all thou art, and all thou showest, one
With universal soul; we yet shall learn
Even in thy present discords to discern
Some hint of human harmony to be,
Some cadence of the cosmic symphony !
194
LET US ARISE!
we uplift our souls to Terra's flight
V—' Of homage and obeisance, could we share
Her stellar consciousness, each mortal care
Would fall abashed from that stupendous height,
That vast unswerving grandeur of delight,
Divine cognition vibrant everywhere,
Magnetic interflow of praise and prayer,
Worship in service of eternal right.
Let us arise ! O let us cease to crawl
In self-debasement, creeping on the ground
Like insects ; we, whom majesties surround ;
We, who are sons of God ! So may we call
On Him ; so may we to ourselves be just,
And spring to our true stature . . from the dust !
195
AT LAST
T 7 NSEARCHABLE, however search extend ;
LJ Unchangeable, through ceaseless change the same ;
Unnameable, Whom little children name ;
Unknowable, Whom yet we apprehend ;
First Cause ! Thou dost infinitude transcend,
Great in atomic as in solar frame :
The One ; the All ; sole origin, sole aim ;
Being without beginning, without end
Love, wisdom, justice, goodness, happiness,
Truth, order, beauty . . perfect . . absolute . .
Omnipotent in every attribute :
Creating to bestow, to guide, to bless :
O gleam of universal harmony !
Thou lovest us . . shall we, at last, love Thee ?
196
Entrance to Milford Sound.
ABDU’L-BAHA
]\ /T ORTAL in presence, without one mortal taint
iVI A spirit heavenly, an earthly saint!
But, see the sorrow in that shining face :
There, there our human sins and woes have place !
Abdu'l-Baha ! awestruck we look on thee,
And feel some throb of thy vast sympathy ;
Some quickening spark of thy prophetic fire,
Servant of all ! that all may yet aspire !
Revealer once again of love divine,
The hurt of every jarring hate is thine !
And thus we marvel, trembling lest even He
In Whom alone is love’s infinity—
Has He been grieved ? Has suffering been with God
Up through the direful pathway man has trod ?
199
ANGEL OF GLAD DELIVERANCE
A NGEL of glad deliverance !
ii We cower beneath thy shrouded gaze
Bewailing loss, and change, and chance,
And knowing not thy praise.
We shudder when thou drawest nigh,
And clasp our loved ones in affright
Then, with exceeding bitter cry,
We yield them to thy might!
No more for us the gorgeous sun,
Nature’s dear litany no more,
For us no cheer in guerdons won ;
We breathe but to deplore !
Then troubled questionings arise.
And dark perplexities appal,
Change thwarts our bravest ministries,
And chance seems lord of all.
Why should we vex our little day
With high endeavour, strenuous plan ?
Nor faith nor reason pierce the grey
Sad mystery of man !
200
ANGEL OF GLAD DELIVERANCE
One last desire we blindly crave,
Plead silently one last request:
Grief-worn, storm-driven, of the grave
We ask eternal rest.
Low thrill the chords of being, yet
They vibrate on, insistent, stern ;
And hurt assails us, and regret
In fiercer pangs we learn
Till, thrust on thrust, those bayonets keen
Through every barrier reach our souls,
And light floods in from the Unseen
Which all around us rolls.
Ah, suffering ! thy sharp stroke rends
The shrine of self, the veil of sense ;
And then our inmost thought ascends
In psalms of reverence !
For, in the radiance of that light
Which mortal pleasures cannot yield,
Resurgent from grief's awful night,
We find Heaven's joy revealed !
We recognise the mighty scheme
That links, in never-ending chain,
Existence to its Source Supreme,
And purifies by pain ;
201
ANGEL OF GLAD DELIVERANCE
Rejecting none, uplifting all,
In sure progression, stage by stage
From loneliest deep to coronal
Of love's blest communage !
We hail the cosmic brotherhood,
We list the music of the spheres,
Dimly and faintly understood
Amid the surging years !
We dream of our beloveds passed,
Nor wholly dream, but feel some glow . .
Some premonition . . of the vast
Rich recompense they know ;
Some gleam of that supernal day
When we shall see them, face to face ;
Some rapturous hint, even now, that they
Environ us with grace
We muse on friendships sorrowing here
By time's gaunt shadows held apart;
Assured in truth-illumined sphere
True heart will claim true heart.
With stumbling pilgrimage we climb
The steeps of science, towering far ;
But higher verities sublime,
And brighter still, there are,
202
ANGEL OF GLAD DELIVERANCE
That we shall view when mortal breath
Expires in immortality ;
When, in the enfranchisement of death,
We soar divinely free !
Thus we behold thy beauteousness,
Strong angel of the parting ways !
And tremble not at thy caress,
And shrink not from thy gaze ;
But press right onward in the strife :
To conquer self, to serve, to give ;
Knowing in higher halls of life
No petty thought can live.
O Death ! O Death ! where time and sense
And other pageantries of earth
Are lost in true life’s evidence,
Thy tender name is : Birth.
203
BODY : SOUL : SPIRIT
PHILIPPIANS 111. 14
TV If Y body, and my soul,
IV 1 Agree together yet awhile ;
Not very far the goal,
Not very rough the long last mile.
Bide ye in sweet content,
In severance be gently kind ;
So closely were ye blent,
So wonderful the path assigned
Oft stumbling in the dark :
Yet ever more intent to know
The meaning of the mark
That beckoned on with tender glow.
Ah ! then to strive and pray,
Unceasingly, for strength to press
Toward that steadfast ray,
Through many shades of earth's distress !
And now the prize is clear, :
The glorious supreme award :
Strive on ! ye comrades here !
Tis the high calling of The Lord
204
BODY : SOUL : SPIRIT
ECCLESIASTES XII. 6
1\ !\ Y body, and my soul,
IVI Agree together while ye may ;
For soon the golden bowl,
The silver cord, will pass away
Ye both have served me well,
And I would thank you, ere ye part
The house in which I dwell,
And thee —immortal as thou art.
Thou goest hence with me :
My vesture and investiture,
Whereon who looks may see
My Self, in sequent portraiture.
Deep, sad humility ;
To know as I was known before,
My soul announcing Me,
For evermore ! for evermore !
Yet, by the grace of God,
And in the love of His dear Son,
That pathway shall be trod,
And thou shalt show the progress won
i7i
BODY : SOUL : SPIRIT
1 JOHN 111. 2
j\ /[ Y body, and my soul,
IVI And I—core of this trinity :
An atom of the whole
A sparklet of infinity,
A spirit—holy thought !
A child of God ! my lineage
With every blessing fraught,
Unfolding life from stage to stage,
Throughout eternities
Of being and experience,
Of lofty mysteries
And visions of omniscience ;
On, on, and ever on,
Still learning more, and still more blest .
In Self's extinction drawn
To Love : the first, the last, the best.
For Love is God : Amen !
In Whom we live, and move, and be ;
For God is Love : Amen !
Thus swells the cosmic symphony.
206
PEACE! PERFECT PEACE!
PEACE ! Perfect Peace ! thou sweet and solemn guest!
Oh, come to dwell with us and give us rest!
Peace ! Perfect Peace ! life may be stern and sad ;
But thou canst make it strong, serene, and glad !
Peace ! Perfect Peace ! each weary, wayward mood
Melts into praise of thy beatitude !
Peace ! Perfect Peace ! the Peace our Master gave,
The Peace of unison with Heaven we crave !
Peace ! Perfect Peace ! our souls can be sufficed
With thee alone : the testament of Christ!
207
ANTHEM OF THE UNIVERSAL
cosmic brotherhood,
*— * One universal good,
One source, one sway !
One law beholding us,
One purpose moulding us,
One God enfolding us
In love alway !
Anger, resentment, hate,
Long held us desolate
Their reign is done !
Race, colour, creed, and caste,
Fade in the dreamy past;
Man wakes to learn at last
All life is One !
Thou Who hast made us One,
May Earth's brief course be run
In unity !
Teach us to think aright,
Help us to know Thy might,
Lead us within Thy light,
All One with Thee !
208
NOTES
209
NOTES
BEAUTIFUL ZEALANDIA !
i. “ From Rakiura’s loveliness.”—Rakiura, “ The Glory of the Sky,” the small island separated from South Island by Foveaux Strait.
3. “To far Reinga’s mystic stress.”—Reinga, “ The Flight of Souls,” the western point of Auckland Peninsula from which the disembodied Maori departs—for evermore. Also : the point from which the godwit leaves for Siberia, and to which it infallibly returns ; thus crossing the Equator twice every year.
3. “Where Hinemoa loved so well.”—Hinemoa, the heroine who swam across Lake Rotorua to her Tutanekai, on Mokoia Isle.
4. Nga Huia’s story is told, page 46.
5. Huna Matenga (Julia Martin), chieftainess of the Ngatiawa, Ngatitama, and Ngatitoa tribes, was mainly instrumental in rescuing the crew of the Delaware, wrecked at Wakapuaka, September 3, 1863. The Royal’ Humane Society, and the citizens of Nelson, suitably acknowledged the heroism of Zealandia’s Grace Darling.
6. " Thy harakeke green."—Harakeke= bracken.
M
211
NOTES
RIVERTON SANDS
i. “ But the kainga. . . —Kainga=a Maori village.
2. “ . . . Riverton kaik.”—Kaik=abbreviation of kainga
SONG WRITTEN FOR THE GIRLS OF VICTORIA SCHOOL
This song was thus acknowledged ;
“ Kia Mihi Peina na nga kotiro o Kuini Wikitoria Kura, Akarana.
“ Taikiha mo nga rarangi oto waiata itukua mai nei. He nui te hari mete koa o matou. Ka tarai matou kite mahi ite tika, kia kaha ai matou kite awhina io matou iwi. Kia Ora !
" Aperira 6, 1908."
Translation
“ To dear Miss Bain, from the girls of the Queen Victoria School, Auckland.
“ Thank you for the verses you kindly wrote for us. We are much pleased with them. We shall try our best to be good, and to help our poeple. Kia Ora !
“ April 6, 1908.”
RERENGA WAIRUA
Old New Zealand , by “ A Pakeha Maori,” has become a classic of Zealandian lore, and that section of the book which invariably is best remembered is the chapter describing intercourse with the Unseen. The author, Judge Maning, vouches for the absolute trustworthiness of the narrative—be the interpretation what it may. In almost every instance “ Rerenga Wairua ” reproduces
178
NOTES
the exact words of the various speakers —as translated by Judge Maning. It was felt that their innate beauty and significance must be retained, and their cadence decided the
measure of the verses.
Rerenga Wairua . . the flight of souls.
Runanga . . . tribal meeting
Reinga . . . abode of the departed.
tohunga . . priest
Onehunga . . the cemetery of many
whiros . . supernatural beings,
atuas. . . gods, destiny
hapu. . tribe
tahuhu . . ridge pole.
aue .... alas !
rangatira . . . great chief
Ulra .... light from heaven
Pakeha . . colonist, white person.
heitiki . . .a greenstone ornament suspended from a necklace.
Te Ika a Maui . . the fish drawn up by Maui from ocean depths.
NGA HUIA
(Copy of letter from Sir George Grey.)
Wellington, New Zealand,
October 8, 1802.
KSCIUUCi U, lO^. “ Miss W. S. Bain,
Tay Street, Invercargill, New Zealand.
“ Dear Madam, — I beg to thank you very much for your poem of ‘ Nga Huia.’ I regard it as a most interesting and good poem. Not only does the literary work please me, but the story is a perfectly true one.
“ Nga Huia passed through Auckland on her return from Wanganui ; she was a poetess herself —when quite a young girl had written several poems for me. She was so ashamed of having been abandoned that she would not see
213
213
NOTES
me during her stay of a day or two in Auckland. She went home, and in a very short time died. I saw her grave afterwards up the Kawa Kawa River, and the pretty house and place which she had of her own in ruins and deserted. " I do not know if you intended me to return the poem. If not, I should like to place it amongst the manuscripts in the Auckland Public Library.—Believe me, faithfully yours, (Signed) G. Grey."
ANZAC DAY
“ Blind, beloved, and honoured, he.” —Mr. Clutha Mackenzie, blinded at Gallipoli.
ZAMENHOF
"... the Babel din."—Walt Whitman's phrase.
EASTER ISLAND
" How joyously our isles clasped kindred hands
With Madagascar and Columbian lands."
—A reference to certain scientific conclusions based on the dispersion of flora.
A MATTER OF PRONUNCIATION
{Reproduced by request)
Ythan Street
My name was Ythan when I ran
A laughing burn down Scottish braes,
And bonnie bairnies played with me,
And winsome lassies sang my praise.
Not Yithan now, and Yathan then ;
But always Ythan softly sweet :
My days flowed on in melody
Unvext by thoughts of Yethan Street.
Me luckless ! evil fate has come !
Betwisted more than any python,
I would I never had been torn
From those dear bluebell braes of Ythan !
Invercargill, 1894
lbi
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1925-9917504723502836-From-Zealandia---a-book-of-verse
Bibliographic details
APA: Elliot, Wilhelmina Sherriff. (1925). From Zealandia : a book of verse. John M. Watkins.
Chicago: Elliot, Wilhelmina Sherriff. From Zealandia : a book of verse. London, England: John M. Watkins, 1925.
MLA: Elliot, Wilhelmina Sherriff. From Zealandia : a book of verse. John M. Watkins, 1925.
Word Count
19,321
From Zealandia : a book of verse Elliot, Wilhelmina Sherriff, John M. Watkins, London, England, 1925
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