The elfin dell and other verses

Andersen, Johannes Carl, A. H. & A. W. Reed, Dunedin, N.Z., 1934

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EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908328-83-3

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The original publication details are as follows:

Title: The elfin dell and other verses

Author: Andersen, Johannes Carl

Published: A. H. & A. W. Reed, Dunedin, N.Z., 1934

The ELFIN DELL AND OTHER VERSES

Published by

A. H. and A. W. REED 33 Jetty Street, Dunedin, and 182 Wakefield St., Wellington.

by... Johannes Andersen

1934

Printed in New Zealand by COULLS SOMERVILLE WILKIE LTD. Wellington.

CONTENTS

Page

Coronation Song of Empire 5

The Elfin Dell 8

Not from the Dew 10

Kowhai Gold 11

Morning Chorus of Tui and Korimako 13

The Shining or Bronze Cuckoo 16

To a Young Girl 1 8

Morn-glad 21

The Dune-King 23

The Reaper of Dreams 25

The Spirit of Beauty 26

A Minor Third 29

The Morn-flower 30

Moonhalls 33

The Rata 35

The Venturers 36

Te Rere 39

Coronation Song of Empire.

Set to music by Ernest Empson, L.R.A.M., and sung by Albert L. Cropp, at Christchurch.

On the Coronation of King George V. 22nd June, 1911.

(The Spirit of Empire Sings).

Children, know ye your Motherland?

Sing, then, where lies that belovid land?

This is the hour, and this the day of days.

That calls your love to flower in song of praise;

Yea, in your hearts is your love astir,

It leaps with a rose to death for her;

As young men fired

By hopes inspired

For peace desired of nations.

In lofty ideal, as one ye stand —

Sing, then —where is your Motherland?

(Young New Zealand Sings).

Where is that land, our Motherland?

Well, well we know that beloved land!

A warful wild, our fathers say,

Where our home lies, in their youth lay;

A leal young land whose laws shall be

As the voice of a trumpet of prophecy,

Till England smiles

Re-bom in isles

With their mountain piles of grandeur;

With heaven ensphered, and with blue sea spanned.

New Zealand—she is our Motherland.

Page Five

(Young Australia Sings).

Where is that land, our Motherland?

Well, well we know that beloved land;

In Indian sea and Pacific swirl,

A desert, but ringed with gold and pearl;

Treasure and joy she holds unknown —

To man she is living, to youth she is lone,

A wild, wild bride,

Her trust untried

And her heart denied, but yielding:

How shall ye bless whom first ye banned —

Australia —she is our Motherland.

(Young Canada Sings).

Where is that land, our Motherland?

Well, well we know that beloved land;

In glimmer of forest, or gleaming plain

The trapper dreamed not of waving grain.

Nor dreamed the banner of wintry snow

Should quicken a thousand hearths to glow

In a Continent

Where our bow’s unbent

And still unspent our quiver.

Though winds blow cold, heart-fires are fanned

For Canada—our Motherland.

Page Six

(Britain the Beloved Sings).

Where is that land, our Motherland?

Well, well we know that beloved land;

Where queens and kings secure in rest

Sleep with their brave, their wise, their best,

Whose sons new Britains have founded far

With a hope that bums as a winged star,

For queens and kings

Have plumed its wings

Till it soars and sings for ever:

With her bleeding heart, and healing hand—

Britain, Britain —our Motherland.

(The Spirit of Empire Sings).

Where is that land, your Motherland?

Well, well ye know that beloved land:

More wide by far than land or sea,

No bound nor bar to your land shall be,

Nor speech shall sever, nor sect divide,

For hope shall bear you on wing well-tried

When swords and spears

Dissolve in tears

And no land fears Us neighbour.

By no coast hemmed, and by no sea spanned —

World-Empire—that is your Motherland.

Page Seven

The Elfin Dell.

VV7HERE the water tumbles,

Into shadow turns,

Where the dead tree crumbles,

Bound about with ferns,

Hark ! a sound of distant beating—

Ting ! Ting I Tingl

The busy elfin smiths are meeting,

Hidden sunlit forges heating—

Ting ! Tingl Tingl

Where tuis in the sunlight swing

We hear the anvils ring.

Tread you ne'er so lightly.

Stand you ne’er so still,

Two bird-eyes watch brightly—

A robin from the hill :

That’s their watchman ; still you hear them

Tingl Tingl Tingl

Fairies clearly : why then fear them?

But, when now you think you're near them.

Tingl Tingl Tingl

The watchman bird has taken wing

No more the anvils ring !

First they seem behind you.

Then they seem before ;

Withes loop round and bind you.

Struggling binds you more :

Page Eight

Far and far away as ever —

Tingl Ting\ Ting\

Yes, the elfin smiths are clever ;

You know they’re near, but see them ? — never !

Ting\ Ting ! Tingl

Beating in a magic ring

The unseen hammers swing.

If only once you could be

With those fairies far ;

They’re always where you would be,

But never where you are !

Perhaps the ferns and flowers they re making,

Tingl Tingl Tingl

Soon as day from night is breaking.

Hark ! the elfin smiths are waking—

Tingl Tingl Tingl

Clear as birds that round them sing

The elfin anvils ring.

Page Nine

Not from the Dew.

OT from the dew the amethyst

That burns there catches fire.

Not from the heart the virtues ray

That concentrate desire ,

But life and light through heart and dew

Pour their persuasive beam

That in prismatic beauty breaks

To colour, shape, and dream

Deep unimpoverishable fount

Of phantoms and events,

Immortals dimly guessed at through

Their mortal lineaments ;

Unmisered hoard of life and light

Invisible, till stayed

And broken, so the perfect through

The imperfect is displayed,

Veil after glowing veil divides,

To faith-eyed hope reveals

The dim-forth-shadowed ultimate

Mortality conceals.

Inscrutable the emanence

Of light, eternal-rayed ;

How much more life, that gathers light

As its eventful shade.

Page Ten

Kowhai Gold.

through September,

Burning beacon fire,

Slowly up the rocky vales

Thy yellow ranks retire

Flashing out the warning

To thy sister trees —

Foes come thronging over once

Innavigable seas.

Oak and elm supplant thee.

Threat thy far stronghold;

Ho! the thronging white-winged ships

That rob the land of gold!

Axe and fire assail thee,

Rough gold-seekers come

Tuis leave thy honey-wells

And singing vales grow dumb.

Kowhai, yellow kowhai,

On the murmuring plain

Falls the new Danae gold,

The gleaming miles of grain;

Thou in golden burning,

Now the skies are grey,

Comest like an autumn leaf,

A presage of decay.

Page Eleven

Cold the winds are droning

From the naked hills.

Till the Spring’s cloud-hidden sun

The world with wonder fills;

Flashing through September

Burns thy beacon fire,

Luring, but avoiding men

As bliss avoids desire.

Page Twelve

Morning-chorus of Tui and Korimako

(On Kapiti Bird-sanctuary)

of the morning

Dong . . . dong . . .

There, where the east is brimming,

The morning star !

Or near ? ... or far ?

Flushing the sea-shell gray.

What dawn ? . . . what day ?

Transterrestrial hymning,

Bright stars dimming,

Hark ! from the temple raised in ages gone.

Reared ere the Parthenon,

Pillared with palm and tree,

Enriched with self-renewing tracery.

Ethereal singing ;

Wildwood minstrelsy ;

Choir of the listening darkness.

Dusk-veiled ringing—

What bells ? . . . what paean ?

Chorus wildly swelling.

Faint far belling.

What dawn ? . . . what day ?

In heathenesse afar

The Eastern Star !

From lone lona borne

And Lindisfame, unfailing

Through the wild North’s assailing

Raven, and rune, and nom,

Bells of a brighter morn, —

Page Thirteen

Is it their chants we hear

Echoing clear ... so clear

From time’s remoteness calling,

Faintly falling

In elfinry of song,

Dong . . . dong . .

To a new morning star

Or near ? ... or far ?

Veiled in the velvet night

Scarcely the mahoe breathes

Unseen, the kohia wreathes

Loops of fragrant light—

Clematis-whorl, or star ?

Or near ? ... or far ?

Tui and korimako ! thoughts are winging

Buoyant and wild and free

On jongleur minstrelsy,

Unfettered and unfetterable singing.

But hark ! —a new-voiced ringing

Comes floating far, a peal

From ghostly campanile ;

Was it a false dawn lit those turbulent seas . . .

Around lona’s sister Flebrides ?

Verdun . . . and Mons . . . and Marne

What then of Lindisfarne,

The long denial, the care.

The thousand years of chanting and of prayer

Page Fourteen

Page Fifteen

The vesper-bell, the psalm.

The sanctifying calm ?

Was that a barren flowering, like sea-foam.

With no God's harvest -home ?

Yet hark ! —still beats the ringing ;

Now from another sanctuary comes singing .

The Cross supplants the Wain, . .

Again . . . again

A thousand years this matin too has sung —

Yes, since the world was young ,

Nor shall its benediction fail

Till men with barbarous hand assail

As did wild warring men

The sanctuaries then.

A gospel sinks . . . and swells . . . .

0 birds ... 0 bells

The voices in the ringing.

Dawn-birds singing—

Dark heathenesse of doubt shall melt away

As starry night in azure day ;

Fragrance, and light, and song.

Dong . . . dong . . .

The wildwood song of morning.

The Shining or Bronze Cuckoo.

( Pipiwharauroa)

H E sunbeams in a northern wind

Have quickened, and behold.

Thou comest in a shining flight

Of bronze and green and gold.

Kui, kui, tiu-u-u —thy voice

Comes from the bowery tree ;

Dost thou the summer call, 0 bird,

Or calls the summer thee ?

For, clad in gold and silver drifts

Of bloom she comes, and spills

From some hoard inexhaustible

Her wealth on windy hills.

We see her gifts, but see not her

Through glimmering days, 0 bird ;

Unseen art thou, thou shy delight.

But oh, how gladly heard.

Kui, tiu-u-u ;—but who regards

Thy singing on and on ?

Till soon they know the autumn days

With thee and summer gone.

Without farewell, and thou rt away,

Thy valentine who knows ?

They mourn it more who only prize

Thy summer when it goes.

Page Sixteen

Tiu-u-u ; —and somewhere lies a land

In an unwintered sea ;

A trembling takes the heart, 0 bird.

To come and go with thee.

Page Seventeen

To a Young Girl.

T TOW many hearts, 0 young Warmth of these cold -*■ days,

Have silently beaten their glowing anvils to fashion you ?

Warm and unremitting strokes of love have they beaten.

Shaping the precious alloy, softened in lambent fire of lovers glances.

Backward and back I look to dim days, when vacant eyes

Saw unresponsive the star and the moonbeam ; saw without wonder

The living petalled flame of rubies in roses enkindled,

Nor saw in the tall chaste lily

The whiteness of bosoming virgins by love unawakened :

Backward, till bright thought star-like dwindles, illumines no longer

The rayless void of Time, from whose far twilight emerges

A dusky line of dim artificers, their hearts’ blood sacrificing

And moulding in mingled love of life and beauty.

Desire and hope, a tangible aspiration.

The vacant eyes of the long, unlitten years

Grow gentler, deeper, gracious spirit tenanted,

Till the lustreless orb of earth, sun-fired, mist-veiled, and spirit-informed,

Glows with the soul that irradiates your warm eyes,

Pure as the deep dewed eyes of violets,

Page Eighteen

Upon you, delightful, not of the yester-day nor yester-year.

Their long-still, long-cold hearts have lovingly laboured.

Their earnest hopes a lofty aspiring spirit revealing,

A spirit never quenched, transmuting to conscious life

The petal and burning crystal in palpitant dust enfolded.

Pulses within you from that visionless, ageless past,

Urge you, yes vex you ; but they model you after pattern

Beheld by none though imagined by keen-eyed poets, vision-inspired,

Brokenly singing of lofty ideals whose shadows only

Falling athwart their dreams have muted them almost.

And almost blinded with exaltation

In the eyes of the poet as in the eyes of the child dwells wonder ;

The world, an ever-unfolding flower never unfolded.

Fills them with lore, and a trembling apprehension

Of half-revealed glories, of vocal hues, dim voices.

Splendid imaginings, and presences ethereal.

1 see in your eyes the presences ; see behind them

Their upbuoying, quivering aspiration, thousand-winged.

Plumed with the hopes of human hearts—unnumbered death-defiers,

Upon whose swelling and billowing heart-beat you are borne

Unvanquishable, higher than constellations.

Page Nineteen

How many souls, 0 young Dream of these starred nights,

Have bent their high wills, schooled their great hearts, to illume

Your eyes now gaily dancing ? —not all the suns

In opal and sapphire concentrated glow with such fire,

Or with such radiance sparkle.

The warmth of ages of love wells up from invisible springs, norn-guarded ;

The fires from the ancient hearths borne on, ever immortally on,

Rekindle in you, purified, ardent, desiring, source of high hopes and keen joys,

Rising above the earth and its dubious autumn days.

As the burning eastern star above nebulous sea-mists.

Page Twenty

Morn-glad.

JN early morn she wandered

From her baby bed ;

By the lawn I found her

And dewy-plashed, she said :

“ There, on the wet grass.

See, the pretty beads

Blue, and clear, and yellow,

Like rainbow seeds,

“ Shining and changing ;

They do it all for me

Though not one will let me

Pick it up to see.

“ Just when I touch them —

Out shakes the star ;

Little drops of water ;

That is all they are.”

Never mind. Morn-glad ;

Every new day

Will bring you joys as many

As night can take away ;

Even though you lose them

Bliss enough to see ;

Bliss enough to know, dear,

How lovely they can be.

Page Twenty-one

What though when you touch them

Each has lost its star ?

Shining in your heart, dear, . .

That is where they are

‘ Never mind. Morn-glad ’

What is this I say ?

Who has need of comfort ?

Oh my dear .... away

Long-and-long-ago-time,

Is she near or far ?

Can I catch delight, then ?

Can 1 hold a star ?

Page Twenty-two

The Dune-King.

' I 'HERE’S a voice in the night from the blown sand dunes.

There’s a voice in the wild sea wind.

“ Come out, come out, you shall find my arms,

Though you with tears are blind ;

“ Come out, come out, though the spume is blown

To the clouds of the broken skies,

There is warmth, there is love, there is keenest bliss

For her in my arms who lies.

The sea leaps up, the clouds are tom,

They shudder athwart the moon ;

The sand is whirled till it meets the spray

Of the river-mouth lagoon.

There’s a lover who loves with a tempest heart,

His cry is for love or for death ;

He would whirl her up in his passionate arms,

Drink love from her eyes and breath.

She hears ; nor the night, nor the sea, nor the rain,

Nor the wind in the lifted dunes,

Can calm the heart that has fired her eyes

With a lure as of misted moons :

There’s a storm in her heart that surges up,

There’s a cry from her parted lips

That comes like the cry from the tyrannous wave

As it seethes upon broken ships.

Page Twenty-three

Come out, come out : —she has come, she has gone,

On the waves of the dunes she is borne,

Like a gull that is tossed with flying scud

From eve through night till morn.

There s a voice in the night from the blown sand dunes. :

There s a voice in the wild sea wind

Come out, but my arms you never shall leave :

And peace you never shall find

Tossed up, tossed down, like the sand and the cloud,

You never shall pause nor stay,

Though your body he cold at the edge of the wave

At dawn of the haggard day.”

Page Twenty-four

The Reaper of Dreams.

JNEXORABLE, passionless.

Unpitying he seems,

Yet who can fear to mate with Time

Who reaps all our dreams ?

Till we create him, where is he ?

In our oblivion, where ?

Tis we who speed him with our joy

Delay him with our care

Twin-born with us. our mirror-seit ;

With us he droops and dies ;

Our happiness laughs from his heart.

Our sorrow dims his eyes

Inexorable, passionless,

Unpitying ? —the sleeper

Are we, who call the dreams to life.

And call to life toe reaper

P~si> 7v« V

The Spirit of Beauty.

r "J' , HE first leaves fall from the birches silver-enamelled;

Soon will the mists of the Hydra quench even Orion,

And the Alp-loosed rain-winds swathe thee in sleeted cloud,

Spirit of Beauty !

There where the young ash leans, where the withy birch trembles

Beautiful under thy touch, shall be thine altar,

The slender sacred mallow with graven grails

Ministrant standing,

Wreathed in thy roses I worshipped thee, breathed thine odours.

Dreamed wild dreams neath the opiate white magnolia;

But now thou tellest thy beads, hlac-bloomed and black,

Barberry, laurel.

Thee did the bines of the honeysuckle shadow from sunlight.

Thy presence was breathed in the lulling and beeless perfume ;

Fall’n are the honey-wells ; fled in the night art thou,

Linked by the asters.

How art thou sweet in the mellowing fruits, soon garnered !

Hidest thou close in thy leaves from the glittering Scorpion,

Or hast thou gone ’mid the burning of autumn fires Smoke-wreath enveloped ?

Page Twenty-six

Thee I saw with the crocus reborn, by the primrose

Pale and virginal ever fragrantly heralded ;

Now doth the silver-clarioned woodbine blow

Hasty departure.

Thou with the red sun goest ; yet burning still, sad Clytie

Waits the return of the aureoled one, the scornful Apollo ;

And Mary-virgin’s gold-rayed flower like her too burns,

Ardent and hopeful.

Thou wilt return ; thou wilt return ere the winter

Quite has resumed his throne, wind-built on the glaciers,

Tempest-surrounded, crowned with his solitary days,

Avalanche-welcomed.

Clear is thy call in thy going, promise-bestower !

Never thy rosy promises lack their fulfilment ;

Dreams thou gavest first, and then, keener than dream,

Singest at waking.

Ardent lover of youth, of youth the inspirer, maintainer,

To thee, as flowers to the sun, young hearts have opened ;

Them thou hast filled with thy sweetness, the balm of thy breath.

Magical spirit !

Their eyes have burned for thee, their lips have quivered,

Their breasts have throbbed, they have sought for thee summer by summer ;

Ever elusive, still hast thou called to them, called

Faithful as Echo.

Page Twenty-seven

Thou in the oak art the dryad, the young, never-aging ;

Thou in the stream art the nymph, pure, fresh as its waters ;

Thou in the star art the voice that calls to the heart.

Ever immortal

Thee have I seen when far in the east, o’er dark billows

From Hesper have fallen misty silver beams.

Till the rising arch of the moon rayed out in gold

Paving a sea-way

There have I met thee, my spirit walking the waters,

Met thee a moment, whose magic, a moonbeam in darkness

Gave me a quiet world where sight was sound,

Colour was melody.

Thee have I heard, thee have I seen, for thee have quested,

Sought, though I knew not what, knew not to name thee,

Till deep in thy haunts have beamed thine eyes, and Truth

Clear in their glances.

The first years fall from thy lover ; —exquisite goddess,

Still unaverted thy beauty, nor veiled thine inspiring glances ;

Tenderer growest thou ever, growest more perfect, more loved.

Spirit of beauty !

Page Tu'enty-eighl

A Minor Third.

“ y I said ; and the ferns

Bent their heads lower to hear me ;

(Now, 0 my heart, as she turns,

Tell her what urges and burns.

Now, with her flower-face near me.)

But an immelodious tui

Lit on a spray, making glisten

The gold of the kowhai

Then, heart-sore as I, how he sang !

Through my breast flew a pang

As, bending to me, she said—“ Listen !”

Page Twenty-nine

Page Thirty

The Morn-flower.

(A Carolling Thrush)

See to it! We knew it !

In springtime we rue it

If singlime we squander

And wander apart ;

Kneedeep blow the clovers.

Kneedeep go the lovers.

And clingtime is ringtime

Sweetheart —

See to it I

Sing ho ! then ; young day is

Shell-pearled as the may is

On benty hedge whitely

Fall' n lightly as dew ;

The wide east uncloses ;

While dawn gathers roses

Bird-singing comes ringing

Anew —

Sing ho ! then.

Come soon, for the hours

Go flashing in flowers ;

The petals are flittering

In glittering white drifts ;

Where song-larks have revelled

The young morn dishevelled

Wind-raptured, sun-captured

Uplifts—

Come soon then.

The pale stars forsaking.

Dream silvers to waking

When widens the morn-flower

Cornflower-blue ;

Swift sunbeams give greeting,

Light sea-winds, as fleeting,

Assembling, come trembling

The dew —

My dream-flower.

Give love then, that sorrow

May dim not to-morrow

When singing and flowering

Come showering delight ;

When young pulses tingling

Urge loverward, mingling

Day’s fleetness with sweetness

Of night—

Give love then

Come soon and delay not ;

The lovemoon will stay not.

The lovecroon half spoken

Is broken with sighing ;

Green bowers the bird wings to

Bright flowers the dew clings to

Fleet pleasures, yield treasures

Undying—

Come soon then

Page Thirty-one

Dream flashes to being

And flowered eyes to seeing

While snowed from the day-blossom

May-blossom falling

Bids you —oh delay not

For throbbing love may not;

His word-song, pure bird-song Is calling—

My dream-star.

See to it I We knew it I

In springtime We rue it

If singtime we squander

And wander apart ;

Kneedeep blow the clovers,

Kneedeep go the lovers.

And clingtime is ringtime

Sweetheart —

See to it!

Page Thirty-two

Moonhalls.

(The moon-moth Dasypodia cymatoides)

OON HALLS and mothways and unzoned flowers,

Where dim emerald light veils the glow-worm bowers,

Who breathes the odours that impregnate the dusk,

Nameless as hangehange, fugitive as musk ?

Ghostly forms and silent, out from shade to shade.

Dusk-wove your bowers are, viridine inlaid ;

What is your day-star who make a gloom of light ?

Holds the dark a pearl-core that makes day of night ?

In minever and sendal folded and enswathed.

You flutter on the night-air in scent-seas bathed.

Vagrant as fancy that mocks the mesh of thought,

Like elf-light apprehended, like water-flicker caught.

Masked in the darkness colours glow unseen,

Pirouetting Columbine, fuchsia red and green,

Yellow rata, crimson, poroporo blue, —

What more enchrysalized in darkness lies perdu?

What thrills the grey coils, the palpitating vines,

To flower-light and berry-glow and silver-whorled bines ?

Whence comes the fiat that bids the script bum

Charactered rosetta-clear could we the clue discern?

Page Thirty-three

Do spirits yearn for bodiment in quiet grey eves ?

Shape to their perfection the flower-grails and leaves ?

Unembodied essences the quiet glades that throng.-

We belong to earth-light ; to what do they belong ?

Moon-moth !—the iris concentric on your wings

Waxing to the full, what unimagined things

Populate the ghost-light, dowering the hours

In moon-halls and moth-ways with unzoned flowers !

Page Thirty-four

The Rata.

RATA, proudly borne on high

Thy crimson treasure swings.

Thou hast usurped the royal dye

Of cardinals and kings ;

They through the years have borne the brunt

Of tempest and of flood ;

The crimson on thy vaunting front

Is drawn from royal blood.

0 rata, not thy might alone

Hath raised thee up from earth ;

The king thou mad st a stepping-stone

Lifts thee above thy worth ;

Through others greatness thou art great.

Through others’ fairness fair ;

Had kings laid by their royal state

Thou, rata, wert not there.

What centuries of growth have built

Thou seizest as thine own ;

It is the blood that thou hast spilt

That drapes thine aery throne ;

Death from thine arms’ embracing springs.

The monarchs are no more ;

True type of tyranny of kings,

No heart is at thy core.

Page Thirty-five

The Venturers.

(A Chorus)

I 'HROUGH the foam (Sing fair), from our home (Sing fain).

We shall sail for the farthest sea (Yo ho !)

We shall steer {Sing fair), nor a fear {Sing fain),

Twixt our hearts and our hopes may be {Heave ho !)

Then set the course 0 venturers ; follow in your pride.

Turning not faint-heartedly though hurricanes blow ;

Onward in your doggedness that will not be denied.

For where the winds have thoroughfare, thither ye may go.

Boom-m-m .... Boom-m-m

Fall the billows thundering ;

Dong .... Dong

Bells of England toll ;

Into every secretness, all the earth for plundering,

Over ocean-waterways, where never fades the goal ;

Dong .... Dong

Earth is full of witchery and eyes are full of wondering.

Behind us seas are thundering

And seas around us roll.

You we leave {Sing fair), never grieve {Sing fain),

Though we fade as the stars at morn {Yo ho !)

We will bind {Sing fair) all we find {Sing fain)

As a jewel to be won for you and worn {Heave ho !)

Then trim the gallant galleons and caravels for sea.

Trimming too unblenchingly our hearts for wind and weather ;

Page Thirty-six

Thinking of the home-again that one far day shall be,

When eyes shall sparkle wonderly and hearts shall beat together.

Zoom-m-m .... Zoom-m-m

Winds shall roar to aft of us.

Dons ■ ■ ■ ■ Dons • ■

Bells of England toll

Water-wastes may howl about the buoyant dancing craft of us,

Buffet us and battle us and hide from us our goal ;

Derring-do’s the wine of life, a deeper draught is quaffed of us,

Though roaring seas are aft of us

And seas around us roll.

As at dawn ( Sins fair) are undrawn (Sins fain)

All the veils that have hidden a world ( Yo ho!)

So shall rise (Sins fair) the veiled skies (Sins fain)

When our sails at the last are furled (Heave ho I)

Yea, all horizons vanishing as them we still pursue.

Draw the veil from wonderlands and yield them to our ken ;

East beyond the Indies and west beyond Peru,

On till west is east again great-hearted sailormen !

Boom-m-m .... Boom-m-m ....

Through the forties labouring,

Dong .... Dong ....

A-dream in the atoll,

Where earth’s unbodied voices are and spirit-fingered tabormg,

On we ply unceasingly with Yonder still the goal ;

Fighting hell-eyed savages or heaven-eyed sirens neighbouring,

Through seas for ever labouring

As seas and seasons roll.

Page Thirty-seven

We shall rest (Sing fair) on her breast (Sing fain)

From whose heart we her lore have won (Yo ho !)

At the last (Sing fair) travail past (Sing fain)

To the earth will return her son (Heave ho !)

But ye who from our lovers’ hearts for love of us have sprung.

Long shall ye inherit it, the ocean and its gardens ;

There shall children’s voices sing where sailors first have sung.

We have won the seas for you and ye shall be the wardens.

Zoom-m-m .... Zoom-m-m

Winds of night blow over us,

Dong .... Dong ....

Bells of England toll ;

There in utter fastnesses our sons shall rediscover us,

’Stablish for the home of them our windy-warded goal

Dong .... Dong .. . .

Hills of green with daisy-foam peacefully lie over us,

Lie for ever over us,

And no more oceans roll.

Page Thirty-eight

Te Rere.

(On Kapiti, To L.T.)

EEP Te Rere’s halcyon time,

Can I catch it up in rime ?

Hold it in a passing song

Where the thought may linger long ?

Vestibules of ferny gloom

Starred with fallen ngaio-bloom.

Rocky clefts and waterways

Twilit in the leafy maze.

Ardour of to-day’s embraces

Yesterday’s, as sweet, effaces.

But a single day like this.

Wells, a self-renewing bliss.

There the riven rock uprears.

Moulded with the touch of years ;

You its bowery top have gained,

Memory has the hour retained.

Year by year the myrtle strews

Blossoms, as the darkness, dews,

Swinging a perpetual scent

From its leafy firmament.

There, in unautumnal bower,

You have caged a flying hour.

Shedding an unfading light,

Flower by day, glow-worm by night

Filling with quiet ecstasy

Intromusing memory.

Page Thirty-nine

Overhead the whitehead calls

Through soft singing of the falls,

Parrokeets in vestured moss

Humorous interjections toss.

Bellbirds chime, and tuis sing.

Pigeons beat a wuffing wing.

Mingled sounds a music making

Memory’s closes unforsaking

’Twixt the rugged bowery ridges

Fallen trees make ferny bridges,

Bridges such as memory flings

Linking well-remembered things,

So the arid in-between

Shrinks as if it had not been

There, the gentle lapse of hours

Leaves no care beyond the flower's

Feverous recollection sears not,

Visioned hope the future fears not;

Ripples of grey-templed care

On the brow are set not there ;

Fragrant-breathed earina clings.

Autumn-greeting, sweet as spring’s ;

And when autumn’s quiet nights

In the east the Scorpion lights.

Topsy-turvy star and flower

Grace this unfrequented bower —

Kohekohe and Orion ;

Earth, a happier linked Ixion,

Page Forty

Circled day and night in turn

With stars that flower and stars that bum.

Until winter seems a word

Hardly known, and seldom heard

Save in tales and forlorn rimes

Of ancient lands and hapless times.

Books are banished ; breezes turn

All the leaves from which we learn ;

Blooms in tendril-border set

Prank the page with coloured fret ;

Lichens unobtrusive hold

Glaucous crisps with dusted gold ;

Mosses, soft with feathery fledges,

Saffroned bronze, and emerald edges,—

Elfland wealth, the spirit-lure.

El Dorado in miniature ;

Apt it is this book of hours

Should be wrought of leaves and flowers,

Charactered and coloured new,

Yet as if remembered too, —

Writ in long-ago terrain

Somehow come to life again.

Yet, if we awhile would be

Followed with highborn poesy,

Communing with those who teach

Wider utterance to our speech.

In whose hands cold words are wrought

To gems of opalescent thought

Shedding on the future’s pages

Varying lights for varying ages, —

Page Forty-one

Ferny glades though lorn of bee

Call up flowery Innisfree ;

Lemnos glimmers near at hand,

And the golden Samarcand ;

Almost the lost secret stirs

Of the quiet listeners ;

Love-wrought,—might that mood remain

Beeny lifts in irised rain ;

And, when night-airs lightly blow,

See, the young Star-captains glow.

Here, though sprightly Ariel

Does not seek the pohue-bell,

Though no elvish Puck beguiles

Wanderers with his pranks and wiles.

Fancy sees, in spirit-dawns

Polynesian leprechauns,

Sprung from gable-effigies

Like Greek dryads from Greek trees ;

And the same sea comes and goes

As the blue Aegean knows.

From the wave shall be retrieved

Prospero’s wand, and that achieved,

Might we too his mantle borrow

We should so enchain to-morrow

That, “ Behold !” our hearts should say

“ Yesterday re-lives to-day,

Linking up the then and now

In our lilting—who knows how ?”

Page Forty-two

Hark ! the cuckoo’s silver call;

Veilings interstellar fall

O’er a moon of fancy risen

Loosing from oblivion's prison

Sweet Te Rere’s halcyon time

Caught in amber of a rime.

Page Forty-three

Forthcoming Books of Verse in this Series.

Johannes Andersen

It is hoped to issue the following booklets, similar in size and price to “The Elfin Dell," at probable intervals of three months.

2. The Daughter, and other Verses, including the balladnarrative The Daughter, the Dedication Ode on the Opening of the National War Memorial and Carillon, Wellington, 1932, and verses inspired by trees, birds, etc., of New Zealand.

3. Kanawa and the Elves, (telling how Kanawa was benighted in the bush, was visited by the elves, who carried off the shadows of his weapons).

Tama’Ra, Maui the sun-god (showing how the acts of Maui point to his being a solar deity).

The Loves of Tane (showing how Tane created first the trees, then the woman who became the mother of Tane’s wife, and she in turn became the mother of Death).

4. Toro and Aroha, (the story of the spirit of a young man called back by the tohunga to speak with his relatives; and on his going his sweetheart shoots herself that she may accompany him).

The Underworlds (outlining the daily life, adventures and beliefs of a Maori warrior, from the cradle to the grave).

Page Forty-four

5. Tura and the Paries (the adventures of Tura among the faries, and how he taught them the use of fire, and the true way of childbirth).

The Overworlds (the story of the rebellion of Tu against the other Maori gods, his assault on the heavens, and his final fall).

The above booklets are to be published in limited editions and it is advisable to order immediately. Place your order now with any leading Bookseller, or order direct from the Publishers:

A. H. and A. W. REED,

33 Jetty Street, and 182 Wakefield Streeet,

Dunedin, Wellington,

New Zealand.

Page Forty-five