A FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT, MAORI LAMENT.

Aotearoa, or the Maori Recorder, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1 January 1861, Page 23

A FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT, MAORI LAMENT.

Lonely I sit, ; the while my heart is reft asunder ';' ' For you my children. .. '.'',''"'''' ' ' My sons! >,.,.,;....;... ■ .■.■.. Here am I, bending to the earth : , :. > . Like Tane's* offspring, yonder spreading trees. : And for you my children, ' I am drooping as the great tree fern. ■ Where are ye? Where is the stripling who was greeted with the words "Welcome hither son" The ever ebbing-tide f has borne him hence Upon the wooded plain I sit me down, Let it be barren—let every bud be blighted; Let not the sun above me kindle with its rays this plain; Nor yonder mountain shelter itThe mountain by our village home, which shared our joys, And drew the mournful breeze upon us, From lands far south. v ' By that dread monster Whiro J ye are bound Within the house hard by. How busy is the multitude! But what e'er is said or done I heed not now, Allall is blank to me. Why shines not now the moon ? Has it been stolen from its sphere? || These mighty cliffs, who hurled them from their height And what have these poor seedlings § done that they should Perish? and what .great crime have we committed, ■ That the gods combine to make us desolate— - To blot us from creation, as the Moa ? *f

* Tane—the god of forests, the trees therefore, are called by the New Zealanders “Tane’s offspring.” ' t The ever ebbing —the sea of death, whose waves ever and anon are dashing into the homes of affection and bearing away with ruthless violence then' helpless prey. ; X Whiro —the god of plunder evil one, who is here charged by the father with stealing his sons and binding them in the house—he. the house of death. 11 The poet supposes that deep sympathy with him induced the moon to, withdraw her light, at least for a season, and that nature expressed her grief for the departed youths, by a mighty shock that threw down the cliffs &c.' ; § Seedlings—his children.; The idea is, that seed does not injure the ground, does not defile it; in like manner, the children did not corrupt the earth, the dark deeds of riper years never having been committed by them, the poet imagines, therefore, that the anger of the gods in this instance, is cruel and unjust. ■ # fMoaan extinct genus of gigantic New Zealand birds, from four to twelve feet in height. [Dinomis] '. . , : .