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Title: Gleanings
Author: Powell, Roland
Published: Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1933
GLEANINGS
By "KEA”
To my friend H.M.
WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LTD.
Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, N.Z.
Sydney, Melbourne, London.
1933
Tir NATIONAL LIBRARY OP NEW ZEALAND
Ave Atque Vale
—Katherine Mansfield.
Spirit of Beauty! Late set free from earth,
In what imagined sphere de<Js hold thy course
Clad in ethereal light?
What happy star gives thee a fuller birth,
And lifts with interpenetrative force
Thy soul above the night
Of this low-hung and far-off regioned world?
E'en tho' the pinions of thy song are furled,
And Music here is dead,
And Light and Laughter fled,
Yet from the realms of purest love return
And still frequent those lonely hearts that in the shadows yearn.
Too few, there are, alas! in this dark isle,
This lonely outpost of Eternity,
Who share thy Essence rare,
And that Serene Irradiating Smile
That moulds intensely more than man may see
With eyes of blinded care,
And dim emergence from the mystic clod,
That upwards yearns with outstretched arms to God:
And yet, scarce knowing why,
Can utterly defy
The Voice insistent ringing in his soul
That Light is Love, and Order Calm, the Power of High Control
I come, the least of all that round thee throng
And lay this wreath of memory, unseen
Upon thy silent heart,
And steal away as voiceless as my song,
And muse on all the past that might have been
Ere scarce my tuneless ar
Made feeble frettings on a stringless lyre.
And knelt in Awe before the sacred Fire
On Poesy's High Shrine,
When, melting once with thine
My soul, expectant floated in a trance.
And knew at once, the Inner Source of thy Pure Radiance
God. The Evolutionary Sublimity of final and conscious Entity.
3
Unknown by human names we gazed intent,
And in the blended Rapture of that hour
Above the dreary mist
Of earth-desire there pulsed a vast Content; rV.„ J •• II J 1:1 n
Our wondrous vision blossomed like a flower,
For spirits as they list
Rise on the wings of high ethereal joy,
And melt in music sense can never cloy
Beyond defilement pure,
— j . ——* f* u **, In Perfect Love secure,
Like wafted flames our souls together leapt
And on the plumes of burning song victorious onward swept.
Yea! Life Triumphant outspanned Time and Space
The sable wings of Chaos, brooding far,
All suddenly, intense
In pregnant ecstasy and vital race,
Exultantly gave birth to sun and star: —
An echoing Voice cried "Hence"—
And swiftly thro' the gates of nascent flame
Cleaved fast the onset of each mighty frame;
Unto their courts appointed
Each sprang with Love annointed,
And like a golden javelin took flight
And shook the ringed planets free athwart the dome of night.
The dark mysterious theme of every age; Tk» „-,,:,• T T„1,„™.,„U1„ T:J C T:_. I c.
I he vast Unknowable Tide of Time and Space
Now lay beneath our gaze:
The insight of the soul creates the sage
With Dawns and mighty Dreamings on his face,
And in his eyes amaze,
That from this Universal Uncreate,
Thro' all the fierce Catastrophes of Fate
The Soul of man took form,
Majestic, Conscious, Warm
With Pity, sacrificing Self, that Love
Might find a Home secure, and cease midst Powers Blind to rove.
7
Man is Divine: and only in his heart
Is found the Quick’ning Beam of Sympathy:
The Lightning of the Mind
That flashes thro' the soul, and cleaves apart
The adamantine Door of Fear, to free
From Priest and Bond, the Blind;
And, from the Pestilence that groans in Pain
Releases Man that man may rise again:
Whilst, from the tomb of doubt.
Bursts with a Mighty shout
The long-pent Genius dreaming in the Race,
Till Wedded Truth and Beauty kiss and Science Fair embrace,
And bright-eyed Knowledge bringing in her train
Applied Utility, Invention's child,
And all her company
Of eager thoughts that teem within the brain
With usage and with subtle craft grown mild,
That erst untamed and free
Roamed on the wings of Elemental Force,
Now chained, perform for man, a nobler course;
, L .„- ? „ „ . —„—, The willing Slaves of Order,
With Law their Royal Warder,
Now marshall on the Everlasting Way
The vagrant visions mirrored in the Dawn of our To-day
No more the empty mirage of our dreams
Shail mock us in this desert of desire:
Yonder amid the palms
The broad'ning river of the Future gleams,
And on its bosom rides a barque of fire
Warm in Adventure's arms:
A new Columbus steers into the West,
And seeks again the Islands of the Blest,
O'er Oceans fiercely strown t_j_ _ī .L. J 1 rr_i
He charts the dread Unknown,
And like a Poet in the gloom of night
He sees beyond the Tempest the far-off Lands of Light
Oh, veiled Perfection! in that hour of joy
Infinity was robbed of all its Fear,
And on my lifted eyes
A Splendour fell, no changing years destroy:
A Constant Purpose burning ever clear:
A Lamp that never dies,
t 4 LlklL UILJ, But sheds afar its fair effectual ray
Beyond the glow of my ephemeral day
Whilst, from the wide expanse
Of universal trance
Life rises like a vision from the tomb
And fills the fields of night with flowers of amaranthine bloom.
There is no music that can move the heart.
And bridge the silent mystery of being
wherein we scarce rejoice,
Who dumbly act within ourselves our part,
/ ~— r"***> And give no import of our inner seeing,
Till some beloved voice
Interprets our own dream. Ah! then we feel
The Truth of what we know and dare reveal:
'Tis from this hidden well
Floods rise we cannot quell, a„j *L~ LI.J - _r i I
And on the troubled waters of our thought
Gleam momently those fragile barks with faery whispers fraughr
Like stars encinctured by their mutual beam,
In linked joy of converse high and rare,
With lingering steps we came
Adown the pine-protected ridge: the dream
Of budding Spring was bursting fresh and fair:
The upland slopes were flame
Yet, on the sea below were dimly glassed
Faint aery phantoms, as the Future passed
In pageantry forlorn
Of hopeless longing born—
And sudden, vanished from the outer eye
And left within a Loneliness that haunts me till I die
9
Then, faintly far, the clanging city called:
Bur, on the marge of its unquiet wave
There lay a dreamy dell
With circling boughs and greenery enwalled
That still retained the Peace that Nature gave:
Where legend yet may dwell;
Where, still the ear unsensual can discern
Ihe beat of Turi s paddles as they turn; 2
Or meet in fancy fine
Our Maori muses nine; 3
Or, in the gloom, for Hinemoa’s sake 4
Hear plaintively the longing flute across the twilight lake.
And there, within a mossy niche upwelled
A crystal dimple bubbling with delight,
My native Helicon. 3
You knelt and drank, by its soft voice impelled:
Empyrean Splendour seized my mortal sight,
And on your Presence shone;
And round your form a faint and faery mist
Made music none but poet’s ear may list
Whilst in that Beauty veiled
My trembling senses failed,
And all that memory now holds of Thee
Is as a fading sunset flung upon a tropic sea.
Notes—2 Turi the chief and navigator of the Aotea.
3 There is a striking similarity between the Speculations of
the earliest Greeks and those of the ancient Maoris re-
garding their respective cosmogonies. Perhaps such a
conceit as this may not be found altogether extravagant.
4 This refers to the tender love idyll of Hinemoa and
Tutanekai.
5 My native Helicon. The Grant Road Spring.
7
'Twere ill that I should wake a wornout note
And vex the tranquil slumber thou hast found
With any clam’rous grief;
Or urge from Nature's pure and joyous throat
A threnody of solemn-moaning sound.
How vague, and yet how brief
Is Life—A trembling whisper thro' the night—
A shadow of a thought concealed from sight—
A longing, a desire,
A pulse of spheral fire, —
A wave that rolls against an amber shore
And breaks in sapphire splendour along a starry floor.
My saddest tears flow for the unsung dead
Who sleep on scattered farms and lonely runs,
Beneath some wind-swept hill;
Or in some back-block clearing, where they led
\*SL in jwjul ua\.iv fiwt>». ■'**»_» »- A patriot band of pioneers, whose sons
Still own the land they till
Oh! when I lie awake and feel the rain
Beat sobbingly across an empty plain.
While brooding thunders roll
Their melancholy toll,
I long to rise and shield them from the blast
Until the winter blizzards cease and storms be overpast.
The high Gods still are jealous of their gifts,
Lest mortals scale their everlasting throne,
And cease to humbly bow
When e'er the cloud that hides their Presence lifts
Upon the viewless wings of Rapture blown;
And, 'tis to me enow
To know thy spirit felt no earthly pride,
But came, in joy unstained, the lovely bride
Of meek Humility
Whilst mild Serenity
Held open Meditation's azure door
As thro’ the throbbing stars of song thou strodst Heaven’s Gold*
floor.
11
Oh, gentle pilgrim! 'twas thy happy lot
To travel leisurely in golden pain
And glean in lovely fields
The fairest flowers of ev'ry hallowed spot
Where master minstrels raised their matchless strain:
Whose deathless music yields
Immortal melodies and visions bright:
And now enrobed in song's exceeding might
„.. „...„„..„ ... 0„.. 5 i..ii.,.i. U iii g lll.gl, They steep their plumes in fire
Of Ultimate Desire,
And wrap this grey world in a rainbow haze
Of grand symphonic harmony and everlasting praise
Mine is a sorrow finer than my pen,
The subtle distillation of a dream
That blossomed under skies
That most I longed to see, —the pine-ridged glen
— D __ —, r —„ ..„ & . Of spectral Brockcn, eerie with the gleam
Of witch and were-wolf eyes:
That haunted forest where the erl-king bides
— & —, — And shrouds the screaming child the father hides,
in vmuw •. i ii., j>_n.iwiui.t, v_ - J * lb_i VIIL ItILULL lllSJt. Who, closer in his fear
Enfolds his darling dear.
And spurs in madding horror thro' the storm,
And scarce perceives his babe is dead because he feels him warm.
And on thro' dark enchanted woodlands fare.
And hear the phantom horn at midnight sound
-a. uit puniuuiii nviii til 3VJCIIIU Across the chilly wold.
Ah, Christ! too late to flee the fatal snare— . 1_ J__ T 1 ■ I. _ .T. .1 I 1
The lady Lorelei hath now thee bound,
And in her dungeon cold
Wilt pine away into a little dust
As loveless as her mercenary lust
Too late! Oh! never more
Wilt tread thy native shore,
yy lib iitdu Liiv imuvc 311U1C, Nor dream long Summers by the Lurean Sea,
Nor chase the golden flame of gorse across the upland lea.
9
The mist of death enshrouds thee from our sight,
And never more wilt see these islands fair
Rise like a long white cloud
Above thy home-returning prow. —The light
Of Dawn still overflows the golden chair
Of Rimutaka proud
Pcncarrow, pinnacled in lonely dreams,
Relumes her lamp from day-expiring beams
And welcomes thro' the night
Each heaving masthead light,
And constantly keeps vigil bright for the'
Whose bark has set an unknown course and sails a wider sea
Why dost thou stay? Why silent still remain?
The windy Tinakoris wait thy feet,
Their fragrant pines thy laugh.
What mighty pageant fills thy dreaming brain
Of Kings and Queens —and dost thou find them sweet?
And at high banquet quaff
With Bayard and the Chivalry of France
The beaker of Renown and fair Romance:
Or, where the warm road leads
Thro' balmy woods and meads
Dost wander South beside some forlorn knight
While old Provencal poets pipe sad songs of lost delight?
Ah! wherefore should I plant a cypress bower
And couch a melancholy soul in pain
Within its charnel gloom?
Didst not thy beauty blossom like a flower
And glory in the sun and gracious rain?
On thee the gentle doom
Of death fell as it falls on lovely things:
The weary folding of the poised wings
At purple eventide:
The sloping of the wide
Imperial dome of day towards the West
In gradual dim suffusion sinking gladly down to rest.
13
Now dips the sun's red rim,—again begins
The slow procession of the deathless stars
Led by the crescent moon.
Sad Eve in chilly valleys wakes, and spins
From pallid shades and sombre cloudy bars
The cerement pall of noon.
The sea insistently moans in my brain,
And gloom-crowned Kapiti pavilions rain.
A demon unconfined
Is wailing in the wind,
And round the haunted mast screams out in fear
As if some dark distempered Dread was dwelling ever near,
Ave atque Vale! We only greet
Each other long enough to bid farewell
Before the shadows fall;
And instant urge the young and fervent feet
To mount beyond the barrier where we fell;
And heed the higher call
Of onward, upward», till the human soul
Attains to triumph in the distant goal:
r —„_„..* & * And then beyond, afar,
Doth rise a further star
To lead the angel offspring of our dust
Along the Everlasting Way to Perfect Truth and Trust.
II
1933
On Milton - BLIND
I might have held, by more than marriage bond,
The right, nigh three long centuries ago
To call thee brother, living then to show
A loyalty which would have been more fond
Than that we gave a foolish king. The wand
Of ancient dignity is fallen low
When strutlings vainly strive to bend the bow
That makes the hearts of nobler men respond.
Would I had been thine eyes, and held thy pen
And trembled when thy godlike numbers flowed:
Then had I shielded thee from bitter men,
And from the cold neglect of them that owed
More filial love. Great Bard! on England dear.
out thy spirit, protestant, austere.
15
Sonnet
Ah; long have I in rare possession hid
From common sight an alabaster vase
Ensculptured in a hundred fairy ways,
Whereon with symbols sacred, writ amid
The sorrow and the splendour of their loves,
With glowing hearts, a high enraptured band,
Great glad immortal lovers carven stand
& — ———- ——** ——■•—• -*....« With wedded limbs, soft-linked like wings of doves.
■—-~ " x —> —*- *~—~~ " &* And, long therein, the mystic spikenard
Of all my tender worship have I stored,
And sealed the casket close with reverent guard
Shielding both night and day its precious hoard.
So, when I found thee, I might bow before thee
And, prodigal, spill all its fragrance o'er thee.
Sonnet
Ah; pour thy soul like balm upon my heart
\nd bring me Peace, soothe into quiet sleep
This wild unrest. Forbid me not to weep,
Nor staunch the tears that from my eyelids start.
Thus, as I listen to thy melting art
My brain doth clear, and from the pent-up deep
Of long-endured grief, thro’ mazes steep
The gulfs divide—the waters roll apart.
How sweetly music penetrates the night
Of broken vows and barren ecstasies;
And straight I catch the living sound and sight
Of wondrous wars, and magic minstrelsies,
Of dreaming casements careless with delight,
Old Merlin’s might, and chastest chivalries.
13
Chateau de
Muffle the moaning tempest's madding pain,
Shutter the mullion'd windows curtain deep,
Fitful and fierce the livid lightnings leap
Like murdrous thoughts within the demon brain
Of some old ghoulish Kaiser—blood insane
Forget the War—To-night love's veil of sleep
Shuts out the fields now only Death's to reap
The double thundrings—rasps of sudden rain.
My kisses wound thy wondrous throat—thy face
With glorious passion lit, glows thro' thy tears;
Divine abandon! In how little space
Hath love triumphant, outspann'd mortal years.
A hush like Death hangs in the dusk of dawn-
This kiss thy last—and this—for one unborn.
London, 1914.
Sonnet
To stand alone, and face the withering scorn r>r • . j • -i- ■■! i
Of jest sardonic, railing jibe and sneer;
To hear the muttered hate, yet, know not feai
Nor curse the helpless day that saw thee born.
To steadfast stand, and cheaply hold in pawn
Misunderstanding fools who never peer
Beyond their prison walls—with rapture clear
Gaze on the face of God, the All-Forlorn.
Ah! bring the comfort of your thoughts to Him
Who dwells in utter loneliness beyond
All seeming things, until in worship dim
Ye feel high impulse and accept his bond.
a v n.Li lII ,H' J unpuiac rtlltt *n_i-cpt IIIS UUIIU. Courage! ye call it? Life of High Release
'Tis ever more, and inmost Cosmic Peace
17
Sonnet
Gone! lost for ever, like a poem heard
Once in the vast seclusion of a dream,
Whose raptures rising to the surface, stream
Like poignant horrors, faceless, wan, and blurred.
The mystery of man lies in no word
That falls from prophet's lips, or leaps agleam
From poet's pen, no visionary beam
Has once his inmost voiceless prison stirred.
All that we know is all that we can feel;
All we can do is seek illusions fair;
And from the moment’s point seize something real
To save proud broken souls from grim despair.
To these the mart, to those the cloister calls—
Let's make-believe until the silence falls.
On a Fragment of Pre-Man Cranium Sonnet
Soncve t
If only out of sorrow song doth flow
I.i Ulliy uuk ui auiiun jungi uum nun, Then grief were ecstasy akin to God, A.J __■ .T_ _ __~L .L-- - I
And pain the path that every poet trod wn.. _r j__ ._ L. I J._l_l.. .1.
Who sang of dawns to be, and, darkly slow,
In dreams and visions felt the future glow
With strange triumphant light that shod
The panting epochs from the primal clod
With feet of gold, ennailed with iron woe.
Hail! ffitllton—epoch brow! What Chaos grand
Of dim and half-formed thoughts like starry spheres
Obscured, within thy compass of command.
Lay circling nebulous. What hopes and fears!
And now evolv'd, the brain holds in its round
iIUVV tVUIV l_l, UIL I'iiiui IIUIUJ 111 ILJ lUliiili A Universe, with gfcrious Godhead crown'd.
15
Sonnet
Let go my hands! Thou can'st not hold me now
- e," "V a iiuu Ldjisi nut noiu me now, No more I yield myself to thy control,
Red lips no longer tempt my fervent soul, KT I i .....
Nor melting glance, nor lotus-circl'd brow
All that a woman dares, a woman will, T„ 1 L- 1 If J i ,
To keep man shackl'd to her dove-drawn car
Yea! this I know, for, like a red-born star
Imperious in pain, fierce flames thy passion still.
But I have long’d for things more wild and free, -I■--1 1 r f <
For alpine stars where peaks from clouds emerge
hor that uncharter-'d, restless, outer sea, WTI T T I , . ...
Whose Unknown clamours in this heart's storm-surge
Let go my hands! lost is thy deep breast's wonder \vn j ii i , . .
When deep calls deep and thunder answers thunder.
London, 1914
Man Victorious
I am a Trumpet in the Hand of Life
Held fast against her lips, and with her breath
Sonorous. At the Dawn she stands, and throws
My inmost being, vehement with pain,
With pangs of birth and vital ecstasies
Into a mighty blast. All suddenly
Within my soul the Inarticulate
Hath found a voice. This Elemental Chaos
Dumb with unutterable grief and red despair
Shouts forth the paean of life, and laughs at Death;
And from its inmost cell triumphant springs
The soul of man undaunted, scorning Fate
And walking with the Gods in Paradisi
19
Lament
Here low she lies, and her tender eyes
Are closed in dreamless sleep,
I found her dead, in the rackweed red,
Flung from the frenzied deep.
No tears could pierce my sorrow fierce,
My eyes were dry and sere
i'i| i.yi.l, rn.it uiv tliiu JLLI. The floods that leapt, returned unwept
X uuuua uiau impL, itlUlllCU UUWCpL And froze my heart with fear.
And since that day, like a shadow grey
Grief crept into my hair,
All things I view, take a common hue.
That once to me were fair.
The golden noon, and the tremulous moon
That floods the silver sound
No longer glow, and I do not know
The time when sheaves are bound.
The moonlit nights, and the starry heights,
Hillshadows on the sea,
Are all in vain, for she again
Comes never more to me.
I wander afar, like a planet star,
And my eyes oft fill with tears,
nnu my eyes uu 1111 wiiu ledrs, And the love of life, with its stress and strife
Is a thing of other years.
But yet some day, to that Lurean bay
I shall return again,
And bv her side, near the restless tide
f\na Dy ner siae, near tne restless tide Forget for aye my pain.
Pahia,
Bay of Islands,
1912.
20
Pahia
Requiescat
The golden heart-strings of my love
Are tuned to sorrow now,
I strew thy bier with birchen leaves
And willow-weave my brow.
The past hath all my happiness,
My songs of youth and mirth
Enclosed with thee, now buried be
Within the heavy earth.
No more the sun shall rise for thee
Nor set the crescent moon,
No breezes lull for thee at dawn
Nor lisp for thee at noon.
The harvest moon comes thro' the mists
But never more for thee,
The golden year comes back again
But Winter 'tis to me.
Ah! tho' the world for me wheels on
And sight and sound are mine
Would I were lying with thee now
My silent lips to thine.
Oh! faithful ever to thy love
I wait the call of Death,
And fervent pray that thy dear name
Will fashion my last breath.
21
London, 1914
Lyric
A year ago in my garden
Where wonderful roses blow,
You kindled the flame of passion
In a virgin heart of snow,
But into our garden of roses
"im gaiuui i_)i IUSC3 The clarion call came clear—
You heard it sounding the warning
That foemen were gathering near.
I cannot think of you dead, dear,
Who died for our England's sake;
I only wish I could sleep, dear,
And in your embrace—awake.
I listen, and dream you are coming,
' / &♦ I linger awhile and wait:
’Tis only the sigh of the breezes,
And the sob of the sea at my gate
But into my garden of roses
An angel came at the dawn,
And folded so soft to my bosom
Is the image of you—newborn
Oh! Hope that is mine for ever,
The passing years are fleet,
And the Love that none can sever
Will be in the end—complete
22
To An Earthworm
Humble and lowly, spurned by all who pass
And live within this blessed arc of light,
Both beast and man,
Confined, thou creepest, coffined in the night,
And workest out beneath the couchant grass
Thy necessary plan.
Quiet, patient Tiller of the teeming earth,
No wider prospect seems to dawn for thee,
Both blind and dumb;
Thro' all thou toilest uncomplainingly, V,- I _._!_. . .t ■ : J- 1 I
Yet, round thee only, whispering seeds have birth,
And thither all roots come
Thou art the Lamp of Love in earth's dark womb, T-|__> .! l_ „_ . ■ ■ .i-
Tho' throbs no planet music in thine ear;
No sunset gleam
Brings soft cessation to thy toil; no cheer
Of homely word can lift thy helpless doom
To where dim dawn-stars dream.
Contemned, despised, the by-word of reproach,
Dishonoured man is branded with thy name
And made to feel
That even as the dust are Wealth and Fame,
When Crime and Lust and sordid Greed encroach
Upon the Commonweal.
But not on thee should fall this pliant curse,
I_/LIL UUI VJII llltL 311UU1U Idll Llll3 pildllL LUI3C, Whose toil, unsung, is ever for our good
, _ — O , -_ _._ & And common birth.
Thou delvest still, where countless myriads stood
And laughed and loved, until thy quiet hearse
Made rich the barren earth.
With spirit meek, tho' loving life no less,
In simple splendour let me live and die
As one whose heart
Found Rapture ever in our kindred tie;
And more than full of Wonder's happiness
Contented can depart
20
And leave behind no echo of sad moan
Because the banquet-wine had ceased to flow,
And in their course
The lamps of revelry were burning low,
And o’er the feast a charnel wind was blown
With ever-chilling force
With thankful eyes, and blessing to the end
This gift of life so gracious and benign,
Let twilight creep
Around the convex of this bowl of wine;
With drowsy smile meet darkness as a friend—
And let the living weep,
Because upon the myriad-tree of life
This Season puts forth branch and fruit of me
New ring of bark;
Shall I lament the moment-leaves that flee
Before the shrivelling blast and gusty strife
When comes the Winter dark?
Next year the glossy bud puts forth again,
And new birds mate and give the genial sun
Glad welcoming
Ah! linger not, nor sigh when song is done
Nor when thou meetest in the Autumn lane
The ghost of vanished Spring.
Scorn not the dust—Nor in thy weary heart
Make overmuch of what thou shalt retain
Of dance and mask:
High-purposed still, when vital powers wane, T. j i j _ l I /..11 ■
To onward hand the torch and full impart
To thine the nobler task.
Thus, humble dweller in the pregnant sod,
Teach me the full acceptance of my fate
As part of thine,
And more than glorious, since, within the Gate
Of Conscious Wonder I became a God
And throbbed with pangs Divine.
24
A Pagan’s Prayer
Now I am dead, in the rich red Earth
Lay me low and shed no tears,
For my Mother she was, and she gave me birth
Ere man was measured by years,
And now Time hath no pleasure nor mirth,
And I have no ghostly fears.
Where the wild vine clasps the scoria rock,
And hangs from the almond tree,
Where the pheasant-cock, with his merry flock
In the shade sport pleasantly,
In the bright red earth, uncoffined, lock
My clay where none may see.
And over me let the warm winds race
Laden with scented bloom,
For I fear no angry Deity’s face
In the Peace of my red-earth tomb,
Nor do I wish in his Heav’n a place
Whilst others are sharing the Doom.
The king in his marble urn may sleep,
The priest 'neath the altar rest,
But the bright red earth when delvecl deep
For I will dream, where the sickles reap,
Of the red sun in the West.
And sing with the lark when the morning shines,
And laugh in the Summer glade,
And flirls among the vines
And -jiwwith them in the shade
And all unseen, where the wild rose twines,
Hear lovers vows remade
In my heart the clinging vine will root;
And the jovial grape will swell
With a draught that will quicken the purple fruit
And gladeh tfagnpamr of h^H;
For I filled my life with Love's sweet loot
And drank from the choicest well.
ECawa Kawa, Bay of Islands, 1912.
PRINTED BY WHITCOMBE 8 TOMBS LTD 29858
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1933-9917504483502836-Gleanings
Bibliographic details
APA: Powell, Roland. (1933). Gleanings. Whitcombe & Tombs.
Chicago: Powell, Roland. Gleanings. Auckland, N.Z.: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1933.
MLA: Powell, Roland. Gleanings. Whitcombe & Tombs, 1933.
Word Count
4,581
Gleanings Powell, Roland, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, N.Z., 1933
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