Part 40

David McKee Wright.

An Old Colonist's Reverie

Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn, Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn; It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang, The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea -- "The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free."

The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away, All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay -- I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again; But the good new days are better -- I would not be heard to complain; It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.

Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid, Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade, And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie, With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky.

And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know, Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow; All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea, But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me.

There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking in bloom I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom. Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May, But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey; While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted haze of the sea, To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free.

The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom, The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue, Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life running through; And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be.

Christopher John Brennan.

Romance

Of old, on her terrace at evening ...not here...in some long-gone kingdom O, folded close to her breast!...

--our gaze dwelt wide on the blackness (was it trees? or a shadowy passion the pain of an old-world longing that it sobb'd, that it swell'd, that it shrank?) --the gloom of the forest blurr'd soft on the skirt of the night-skies that shut in our lonely world.

...not here...in some long-gone world...

close-lock'd in that passionate arm-clasp no word did we utter, we stirr'd not: the silence of Death, or of Love... only, round and over us that tearless infinite yearning and the Night with her spread wings rustling folding us with the stars.

...not here...in some long-gone kingdom of old, on her terrace at evening O, folded close to her heart!...

Poppies

Where the poppy-banners flow in and out amongst the corn, spotless morn ever saw us come and go

hand in hand, as girl and boy warming fast to youth and maid, half afraid at the hint of passionate joy

still in Summer's rose unshown: yet we heard nor knew a fear; strong and clear summer's eager clarion blown

from the sunrise to the set: now our feet are far away, night and day, do the old-known spots forget?

Sweet, I wonder if those hours breathe of us now parted thence, if a sense of our love-birth thrill their flowers.

Poppies flush all tremulous -- has our love grown into them, root and stem; are the red blooms red with us?

Summer's standards are outroll'd, other lovers wander slow; I would know if the morn is that of old.

Here our days bloom fuller yet, happiness is all our task; still I ask -- do the vanish'd days forget?

John Le Gay Brereton.

The Sea Maid

In what pearl-paven mossy cave By what green sea Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave, In realms more full of splendid mystery Than that strong northern flood whence came The rise and fall of music in thy name -- Thy waiting name, Oithona!

The magic of the sea's own change In depth and height, From where the eternal order'd billows range To unknown regions of sleep-weary night, Fills, like a wonder-waking spell Whispered by lips of some lone-murmuring shell, Thy dreaming soul, Oithona.