The New Hag.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VIII, Issue 1, 1 April 1903, Page 42

The New Hag.

Through the familiar city went A heart sick with a dull content, A heart whose every grief was spent. Of narrow street and sombre mart, My dulled and weary soul was part — In the sullen city a sullen heart. The bare, black twigs, the mist between ! I could not remember the blue, the green; And life was a thing that once had been ! Sometimes I stirred, I yearned . . . for what? My land was a dim thing, long forgot, And the South and the sun and the wind wei'e nor. When suddenly in the shrouded street A flag flashed out my eyes to greet, And a pulse awoke with a maddened beat ! A flag leapt out — a flag I knew — The four red stars in a sky of blue — And I saw myself, my land, and you! Red stars in a blaze of blue — and straight The town was an alien thing to hate, My heart long lonely and desolate ! Arthur H. Adams.