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SONG OF A NATIVE FEMALE.

[From Maori Mementoes, presented to Sir George Grey by the Native people.]

Who in a paroxysm of love, it is said, threw herself headlong from a high cliff upon which she sat and sang this her Funeral Dirge:— Thou glowing sun, that sinkest in the horizon, Oh! linger for a while to light my exit hence ! 'Twere well to be afflicted by the gods With some dread malady to hasten death; — To hasten my departure from the world. I feel my anger rise against a busy Multitude, for all the secrets of my breast The tongue, the evil tongue, proclaims. And am I of more note than Parihi, Whose fame has reached us from the Southern lands ? They say that Tahetahe, too, is beautiful: But far above them all is heard The fame of youthful Pokai, who, like The burning sulphur, mounts aloft, Defying every effort to suppress it, Wlnle the renowned Moetara, in the South, Looks on and listens. And now my Doom is fixed; my sight grows dim • And lo!—I sink—l die !

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAKAM18741103.2.12

Bibliographic details

Waka Maori, Volume 10, Issue 22, 3 November 1874, Page 276

Word Count
179

SONG OF A NATIVE FEMALE. Waka Maori, Volume 10, Issue 22, 3 November 1874, Page 276

SONG OF A NATIVE FEMALE. Waka Maori, Volume 10, Issue 22, 3 November 1874, Page 276