BRITON AND MAORI

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 2564, 23 December 1924, Page 5

BRITON AND MAORI

A CHRISTMAS GREETING FROM OVERSEAS (Written in the rigorous London winter of 1912, by F. W. Christian, 8.A.) Bring here the holly and the box, the myrtle and the pine, Plang high the festive mistletoe the ivy green entwine, Bring the sweet white chrysanthemum, unscorched by winter’s rime. Rejoice, good Christian people, all rejoice—’tis Christmas time. Far, far away on the ocean, the southern cross below, Lies a fair-young land where falls now no chill December snow, Where with red pohutukawa rubytasselled, side by side Flame the crimson flowers of rata ’midst green woods this Christ-mas-tide.

And farther still on the ocean, fanned by the kindly trade Where, the brcad-fru.it and banana ripen ’neath great palms’ shade. Lapped in perpetual summer lies a second Maori-land, Where the ripples of the blue lagoon cream, soft on silver strand.

There’s a health to friends afar. though deep the salt sea rolls ' between, One heart, one faith, one Motherland, one God, one King, one Queen — And one the peace and joy to shine on those and these, the morn When dawns the happy Christman' Day on which our Lord was born

Note to stanza 3, ‘A Second Maoriland”; Here in the writer’s mind is mirrored the memory of two beautiful islands in the Cook group, some 1600 miles E.N.E. of AucklandRarotonga and her sister - isle, Mangaia, the siland of the great stone stairway, with her limestone grottos and her lovely little lake of Tiriara. Be it noted that practically all the brown people of Eastern Polynesia, right to Tahiti and remotest Easter Island call themselves by the common name of “Maori” —the people of the ancient race stock.