NEW ZEALAND BALLADS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1672, 8 December 1883, Page 22

NEW ZEALAND BALLADS.

IV. In Idatis. " O Mother Ida— many -fountain'd Ida !'' — Tennyton. O, Ida is the grandest mountain That rears its head in the Southern sky, With many a burn, and stream, and fountaiD, That when not empty are never dry. Though people in Greece a mountain go to, A visit to classic ground to pay, 'Tis known rijjht well that in Maniototo The real Mount Ida stands to-day. At its foot behold Simoin wander — Hogburn is the name it now goea by — And Kyeburn is the old Scaniauder, Where'still to the god they burn the kye ;* 'Tis there you'll see the goddesses sporting — Minerva Mulligan and Miss Ju-no ; Whiln Venus O'Flahfvlv dofN her courting hi a quiet corner with J.\it Munro. m In tho gent-eel Maori nomenclature " Maniototo " is the " plain of blood ;" And Troy had a plain of the self-same nature, So the two must be one — that's clear as mud. Now when folk first went to Patearoa There were heaps of bones about the plain, And Hector says they belong to the moa — But they're those of his darling Trojans slain The Sowburn, Houndburn.. Fillyburn, Oatburn, With many more, are by Homer sung, And the trouble is to know- if this or that burn Is the same in the Greek and the Saxon tongue ; But the Styx still keeps its name and glory, And Hades is somewhere near no doubt, For the grim old boatman of ancient story Has several shanties thereabout. iEsopus now as the Pigroot passes — The name has suffer'd a trifling change — St. Bathan is the famed Parnassus, And Olympus is call'd the Old Man Range : There Jupiter sometimes rolls his ihunder, And the Mjiseß shiver amidst the enow ; But the miners, in search of golden plunder, Gut a race from Castalia long ago. One Schlieman claims to have found old Ilion, With shields, and swords, and golden urns ; But many have found a new gold hill yon, Where Ida looks on a hundred burns ; And to show their love for their old relations They weigh their gold by the scale of Troy, And pour to Cassiope grand libations — Fetch the constellationf here, my boy. Vibgilius Penstock. Mantua Villa, December 3, 1583. * I shall not insult the non-classical reader by reminding him of the burnt offerings rendered to the deity of tho Scamander in reverential times. f Vernacularly termed " The Three Stan "}" } sometimes more are visible, and indeed under favourable circumstances the whole thirtean may be seen by the aid of a powerful glass. — See Prootor, also inter alia Hftydon and Baxter. V. P.