SONNETS OF THE MAORI.
XXVIII.— TE T7TU PTJ. (True Recompense.) Whan on some hill fort's long forsaken site One comes, perchance, on trace of foss and wall, On mouldering post, half hid in bracken tall, Does fancy read the scattered signs aright? May be. So old-time words, discarded quite, Still run in priestly songs — the meaning Lost with the Wharekura*— still Tecall all To mind some sacred teachings of the land of lightt Ere foreign lore had mixed, or native dried To barren rites and forms. Our priests too few, Too driven by stress of flight to keep pure state Enough to be the teachers of such truths as hide Deep in the words they sang. So utu pu — The law of recompense — grew mixed with hate.
— J. A. (•*) The old house of instruction for sacred things and genealogies.
(+) Te Aotearoa, or New Zealand.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2668, 3 May 1905, Page 73
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144SONNETS OF THE MAORI. Otago Witness, Issue 2668, 3 May 1905, Page 73
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