Work
(Golder Project subject term)
Represented in
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A Bushranging in New Zealand Minstrelsy
- While woodlands encumbered, for ages unnumbered, / Must to their bold enterprize ever give way.
- Lo! see yon bush clearing, its aspect how cheering! / Where Industry toils, and fresh gardens do grow; / The axe still resounding, hard labour abounding, / While bushmen exult o’er the forest laid low.
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Evening Industry in New Zealand Minstrelsy
- The eager bushman, late at toil,
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Come to the Bush in New Zealand Minstrelsy
- For Industry is still the way / To gain wild fortune’s favour;
- Your billhooks get, and have them whet, / Your axes put in order; / By morning’s light, with all your might, / Attack the forest border.
- By sweat of face the human race / Was doom’d to gain a living; / So let us till the fertile soil, / Nor be in doubts misgiving.
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The South-East Storm in New Zealand Minstrelsy
- Cold! cold! is each blast,—and the cottager mourns / All labour now stay’d till fair weather returns;— / But make the hearth blaze, and let shut be the door; / Keep comfort within though the tempest should roar.
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The Bushman’s Harvest Home in New Zealand Minstrelsy
- The clearing, filled with golden grain, / Declares its time is come, / To crown his toils, to cheer his soul, / And bless his harvest home.
- Pleased with his lot, and daily toil, / No cares his peace o’ercome; / His young ones greet, with noisy glee, / Their father’s harvest home.
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The Thrashing Floor in New Zealand Minstrelsy
- Thwack, thwack, bounds the flail now on ev’ry thrashing floor, / Bespeaking sweet comfort, and plenty got in store; / The harvest completed, and produce well secured, / The bushman can smile o’er privations endured.
- His toils give him pleasure when nought else can please, / His heart, of independence is proud, still scorning ease,
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An Ode on Manawatu in The New Zealand Survey
- Let enterprise now have its freedom unchecked, / Give industry scope for its energies new;
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Stanzas — On hearing of the Sudden Demise of Mr. G. Copeland, on May 22, 1866, Aged 65 Years in The New Zealand Survey
- Now, one by one, as tree leaves fall / Upon a sunny autumn day, / As ripe and mellow’d, Heav’n would call / Colonial pioneers away! / These twenty-six years have they toil’d, / And borne the burden of the day; / While making Nature’s face, so wild, / To look as civilized and gay.
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Canto Second in The New Zealand Survey
- As mediators aid in making peace / Between two rivals in dominion’s strife! / Such like to hoards of rude barbarians, who / No other occupation have t’ engage / Attention from the thoughts of fancied wrongs, / Used as pretexts for some usurping feud, / With no foundation, nor a reason why / To give it colour;—nor some enterprize / Of nobler aspect, cultivating peace!—
- No pursuit / Of hardy whaler had they then to fear! / They liv’d their natural life time out with joy!
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Canto First in The New Zealand Survey
- leave our frigid heights / And lofty seated forests to ourselves! / As we thy admiration still may claim, / To cheer you ’mid the cares of worldly toils!”—
- Their reclamation from their prestine state; / As such would be like sacrificing means / And energies in vain; while let alone / In all their savage grandeur, to the eye / Those hills would seem like ocean’s mighty waves / O’er either rising, when by tempest tossed;
- While all those hills of sunlit varied shade / Of foliage in their groves of evergreen, / Although inviting to th’ admiring muse, / They yet appear as unapproachable / To interprizing man! Though he the vale / Must needs subdue:—
- hopes next morn / He may his needful toils resume; but then / How changed his hopeful prospects, when he sees / The mischief done, with much of labour lost!
- May not these (1) / Cascades of solitude, which long have spent / Their force in vain, as having none to guide, / Be brought in requisition yet, to aid / Laborious enterprize; or be the scene / Of lively industry, in busy mills / Engaged in various labours, as the source / Of inward wealth?
- no small damage brings / Upon the cottager, by washing off / His seed sown soil, thus rend’ring labours vain; (2) / Or in its season bringing to disuse / The winning hay ere such can be secured:
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Canto I in The New Zealand Survey
- Again, in summer floods, which generally took place about the approach of Christmas, at the time when people begin hay-making. The season looking propitious, the sun shining brightly in an azure sky betoken nothing but prosperity, and so the labours of the season proceed. Fields of hay are cut down, hay-makers are busy tossing about the hay to the influence of the sun, while preparations are being made for stacking, the husbandman dreaming of nothing but that all appearances are in his favor. Some may have succeeded so far well, but with many it has been otherwise,—when a seemingly sunny shower of rain has come on, thickly gathering clouds would add their disheartening signs in regard to the state of the weather; rain pouring
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To a Mountain Daisy in The New Zealand Survey
- Yes! ye from adverse fortune’s strife, / Recall my pensive thoughts, in brief, / To muse on former scenes of life, / Affording something of relief!
- nobler energies may all / Be roused to efforts more to shine / In glorious enterprize; as up / To rise above what tends to pain;
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Signs of the Times in 1853 in The New Zealand Survey
- They, laughing at us in their sleeve,— / Full glad that they have got such fools / To deal with, as mere handy tools! / But tother day, the poor clod-hopper, / Was one not deemed as fit and proper, / To be accosted with respect;— / But must trudge on through cold neglect, / His living earning with hard toil, / As stranger to the masters’ smile; / Whose cold reserve, and looks so gruff, / Would say he had not done enough;
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A Dinner Hour Reverie in The New Zealand Survey
- Alas, how many are enthralled / By fashion’s chain that binds to earth / In grov’ling mood; contemning peace / Which nature in them might give birth. / Then daily toils would pleasure prove / More than a burden to be borne!— / Why hug such chains of slavery so / That should rejected be with scorn?
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A Fine Morning in The New Zealand Survey
- How welcome the change as we now can resume / Our labours with pleasure, our earnings to gain,
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Canto V in The New Zealand Survey
- Looking back upon the history of the past, in so far as it regards that of the colony; and taking into consideration the hard beginnings of many a worthy old colonist, and how they faced hardship and privations with spirits of bravery; and having through arduous perseverance and toil got, as it were, through the hardest of the struggle, and coming out, so to speak, to the prospect of a time of rest and enjoyment; then, at that time,
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Preface in The New Zealand Survey
- The hardy settler, under whose guidance such civilizing influences are introduced, displays a courage and energy more worthy the world’s esteem than all the exploits of Knights errant in the semi-barbaric ages of yore.
- from such a height to overlook an extensive valley filled with one dense mass of forest, the mind is filled with awe to contemplate the amount of labour required before such can be subdued;
- with no small interest too can we regard the approach of Enterprize and Industry, each, as with bridegroom integrity, come to divest Nature of those solitary weeds in which she has long been arrayed, in order to deck her with the garb of art, thereby adding fresh beauties to her native comeliness!
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Canto Third in The New Zealand Survey
- where such form’d / In particles, or nuggets of some note;
- It must be clothed with all such requisites / That can be called attractive, and conduce / To welfare, in a future time ordained,— / (So far as elemental weal’s concerned / Consistent with the curse which hangs o’er earth, / With much of mercy, undeserved attached!)— / In genial clime, as capable to yield / Much paradisian cheer, when well prepared! / Since man, where’er he dwells, must earn by toil / His living—thus himself declaring far / Above the brute capacity of life, / And owning a dependence on the care / Of bounteous Providence—he must exert / Th’ endowments of his reason, and his skill, / As talents in his care to be improved; / Thus earning happiness, such as the earth / Has in its power to yield; though he must rove / To seek his welfare, or another home, / As prompted by his emigrating will; / Or love of acquisition in a part / Of Nature’s earth, that he can call his own!
- ’Twas furnished in due order with all things / Which requisite were for the various needs / Which could anticipated be, to spring / In man’s creation’s ultimate design; / So that his comforts therein might be found, / According as his needs would urge the search / For such requirements, and rewarded be / For industry well guided; thus t’excite / Such gratitude, that might result in praise!
- Thus the omnipotent Jehovah has / His armies of most powerful agencies / T’ effect some purpose, when He wills to call / Them into action, either for a work / Of sudden effort, or for that, as much / In power, though of long persevering toil! / So, He, in His wise providence, looked down, / And saw the ocean of the unknown South / A welt’ring waste of waters, void of aught / Betokening of some peculiar care;
- The earthquake put to work, no tongue can tell / What may be the result.
- The coral worm, / A feeble thing for man to look upon, / Is yet a means, and one that will not err, / Or turn rebellious from the task imposed / As being one impossible to do! / By such an agency minute, He works / In rearing rock like structures from the depths
- so thus combined / The builders in their energies, which tend / All to one given point, according to / The method of their work, as by behest; / The plan’s incorporated in their lives / As instinct, with no other knowledge theirs, / To make them run erratic from their toils / But give adherence faithfully to the end, / While forming rocky structures from the brine! / Though generations, as they build, may die / And in their works their bodies leave entombed / To petrify, (brave architects indeed! / They build their own mausoleum of fame!)— / Yet each, succeeding, takes the matter up / Where the preceeding left it, carrying on / The great design unaltered, till complete / It gains the water’s surface, and is stayed! / As they, to wherefores asked, would thus reply— / “Thus far no further our commission runs,
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Canto Second in The New Zealand Survey
- industry’s progression will declare, / How the rude mattock primitively used / To till the ground, has moulded been to ploughs, / Thus bringing bestial labour to assist / In time of need! The sickle too must yield / To other strange contrivances to reap / The ripened grain, where much of toil is saved! / In means of war, the sling was reckoned once / A grand discovery to assist the arm / In hurling stones against a coming foe; / Next came the archer, and with his long bow
- WELL DONE! Ye benefactors of mankind; / Whatever be the countries of your birth, / You well deserve the thanks of ev’ry age! / For well ye have fulfilled your trust,—improved / That talent once alloted to your care / By Him who chose you as a means to shew / Mankind His mercy, when He looked upon / Their toils multifarious; and suggested how / Such might be eased; a proof of love divine,
- Thus geniuses, however much or small / Their toils may have appreciated been, / They’ve had their share alloted them to do:— / As certain implements have each their use / In hands of skillful artizans,—so they / Are means which Providence employs to bring / About some distant blessing for mankind: / And when such is obtained, what is it? but / A prelude of some others yet to come!
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Canto Fifth in The New Zealand Survey
- Could this unhappy people, as they were, / Be called the true possessors of the soil? / Their occupancy never seemed secure; / And dread debarred their aiming to improve / In cultivation’s art, or ev’n t’ extend / Their labours more than served a present need; / Or what some exigency might demand! / But not for social intercourse in trade / Among their neighb’ring tribes; for jealousy / Debarr’d such efforts, lest they’d fall a prey / To lawless lust; and, as their wants were few, / So even these with little must be met; / Unless it were when plund’ring was the rule! / The wilderness remained an idle waste! / The land was uninhabited, while those,
- Ye pioneers! who thus have ventured on / A life of hardihood, and ample toil, / “Have courage!” be not flagging in your aims; / Though much there is before you, that bespeaks / Hard labor without end, as fain to mar / One’s perseverance; yet, before you lie / Rewards to be obtained! Fresh courage take! / ’Tis manly still to cope with trials; and / To overcome them with true energy, / Is victory worthy praise, in which much joy / May be experienced with exalted mind;
- Convinced that self-reliance is a gem / Worth all the jewels in a monarch’s crown! / Your’s is the task of reformations great, / Although such may be hard to be perceived, / Not only on this land, but on your race, / While training them by good example, which / Says more than precept ever could enforce, / To industry and hardihood, which scorns / All idleness, and every want defies!
- As ’mid the revolution of events, / Old Nature’s aspect wild must be transformed, / And fresh resources be developed, where / Such seemingly once no existence had! / So now we see the work of bliss begun, / Appearances display a wonderous change
- so that virtue well might reign / The source of all prosperity and peace! / The ultimate design of providence / In peopling earth, subduing desert wilds, / Is now in progress; where a clearing’s formed, / A good beginning’s seen, prelusively / Of happier events to be brought forth, / Though still in future hid; as harvests good, / Of plenteous return, are the results / Of industry in spring; so future things / Indicative of great events to come / In the still further future, are results / Of small beginnings buried in the past! / Thus ev’ry humble effort that’s put forth / In such a wilderness, to make a home, / That effort bears its own proportion to
- ’Tis by the work of a progressive toil, / Which perseverance only must maintain, / Ere to account this forest land is turned: / Long has it shaded been by lofty trees / From th’ influence of the sun! Nor has it been / Yet subject to the cultivator’s skill / For use; but lying waste, it has brought forth / Aught, save what may of civilized life, / Or human comfort tell!
- Yet there are here, / In timber large, the means of fair employ, / To bring to market, such, reduced to shape / Fit for the builder’s use; or other craft / Of neater work, as furnishings for homes, / Remunerative to the man of toil,— / But the chief aim is, to subdue the land, / By the strong arm of industry, and bring / From nature’s secret treasures, such rewards
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Canto Fourth in The New Zealand Survey
- Here, as elsewhere, must civilization’s power, / In industry, in enterprise, and skill,— / All three with ardent energy combined, / Must rise and conquer nature’s wildness, and / Upon her work far other changes bold / To bring her to subjection; thus, must mind, / As aided by pecuniary means, / Be stamped on stubborn matter, as a die / An image would impress on plastic things; / The while effecting in reality, / What fancy paints, a pleasing happy scene!
- where slimy eels / Delight to burrow, as they there abound; / Where much ingenious enterprise is shewn / By natives in the capture of such prey!
- when in early morn the forests round / Are vocal with the songs of earliest birds, / Whose strains from hill to hill reverb’ratin, / As striving, which in gladness can excel; / Whose sweet exertions, well might sloth rebuke, / Endeavoring man to rouse to dutious praise!
- In this space / Some valley must exist, yet unexplored, / In all its prestine solitude, as lone, / Expecting gladness in some future day; / When “Enterprise” makes search for greater scope / To exercise itself in industry!
- Yon gravel pits / Dug deep by roadmen, out of which to bring / Material to construct the solid way; / These give concurrent testimony true, / To that, erewhile declared, by boulders there / Deposited, and made compact, ’mid stuff / Grown hard through ages!
- such desolations oft have proved / A prelude to a nobler state of things / Laid forth, on Nature’s ample plan, and seen / To be admired, when such a work’s complete!
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Canto Fifth in The Philosophy of Love. [A Plea in Defence of Virtue and Truth!] A Poem in Six Cantos, with Other Poems
- Should some lot / On us, by man tyrannic, be imposed, / As not appointed of the Sovereign’s will; / A dispensation may to us be given, / Empow’ring us our liberty to work, / Or aught remove, which progress would impede, / If our advancement be the will of Heaven! / What otherwise is ours, our duty is / To make the best of what seems the reverse / Of all accounted good; as thereby’s shewn / Our virtue, and its nature; as ’twill shine / With such a brightness, which would best declare / One’s genuineness of soul!—Or what is good, / Must still improved be, as ’tis never will’d / Such should be held at discount; as such were / Incapable of being more advanced;
- Blest is the heart, in love, that’s satisfied; / And feels contented with the lot he owns:
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Canto Third in The Philosophy of Love. [A Plea in Defence of Virtue and Truth!] A Poem in Six Cantos, with Other Poems
- a state resembling energetic life;
- Now, to illustrate such a doctrine given. / Permit the Muse such instances to give / That best can stir th’ affections of the heart,— / The best affections bent on virtue’s course / Which best accord with Heaven’s eternal truth!
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A Lay on Wanganui in The Philosophy of Love. [A Plea in Defence of Virtue and Truth!] A Poem in Six Cantos, with Other Poems
- enterprising skill: / Aye, such that makes each wilderness / To bud, and blossom like the rose:— / Though long thy waiting for such bliss, / Yet Time thy prize may soon disclose!
- How Nature like some lowly maid, / Who long has borne a lonely state / With all her virtues cast in shade, / Yet bowing meekly to her fate, / Since she no better knew,—Now see, / Her head is raised, the cheering smile / Illumes her count’nance; as with glee, / New hopes inspire her, as to foil / All heart depressions! See, no more / She’s passive, void of pleasure; it / Seems now her lot, with hopes in store / Of great rejoicings,— bliss most fit!
- Aye then what grand improvements due, / Will on thine aspect be impress’d: / Thy present worthiness, most true, / Shall thus in future be confess’d!
- Thus, devastations dire would prove / A prelude to some future bliss; / The soil enrich’d would now behove / The active settlers’ happiness:— / New, since old solitudes are past, / And day, with Nature, would arise / To scatter former glooms, She’d cast / Her lot in with bold enterprize: / And prove a handmaid good and true; / As crowning Industry with cheer; / And will as joyfully bestrew / Improvement’s path with blessings clear! / So, see around this truth proclaim’d / In mueh of largeness, still t’ encrease; / While more developments are aim’d / To know where her resources cease. / To fathom such would seem as vain / Where ample stores would overflow; / As merest effort makes each gain / A pledge, of what she’d yet bestow!
- How good to mark each distant scene, / Where yet may come improvement’s change; / The wilderness will then be seen / Its savage prestige to estrange; / And welcome civ’lisation’s bliss, / As Nature such a state had chose; / So, thus ’tis said “the wilderness / Shall bud and blossom as the rose!” / Now, still on Wanganui’s banks / May thriving herds, and flocks be seen / With fields of grain, as Heavenly thanks / For industry, which glads each scene!
- So see the flocks and herds around, / They tell of pastures most abundant, / And every homestead seem t’ abound / In industry’s rewards redundant! / No longer like a wilderness / Are spacious plains, as bleak and bare: / Now, ornamental trees express / Most cheering truths of culture there. / The parcel’d fields—the garden ground, / Improvement’s onward march reveal; / The country’s face adorn’d, is found / To promise much for future weal!
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The Picture of a Poet in The Philosophy of Love. [A Plea in Defence of Virtue and Truth!] A Poem in Six Cantos, with Other Poems
- No idleness is his: oft double toil / His industry engages; though the while / Bland Fortune may not on his efforts smile, / To make him independent; / His labours shew it, / As urged by implied duty as th’attendant / On his career; so wilt thou find / His works declare a lib’ral mind, / No sluggard is a Poet!
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Canto Second in The Philosophy of Love. [A Plea in Defence of Virtue and Truth!] A Poem in Six Cantos, with Other Poems
- Love then seem’d dormant, or had but possess’d / Mere infant life, as being void of care, / In passiveness; while no activity / It had to shew progressiveness in life; / ’Twas mere child’s play, compared to earnest work! / —But now ’tis roused; ’tis actively awake; / It feels its own existence, even in / Recrimination, and their mutual grief, / At having lost the joys they once possess’d.
Searching
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Other Collections
The following collections may have holdings relevant to "Work":
- Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, which has entries for many prominent New Zealanders.
- Archives New Zealand, which has collections of maps, plans and posters; immigration passenger lists; and probate records.
- National Library of New Zealand, which has extensive collections of published material.
- Auckland War Memorial Museum, which has extensive holdings on the Auckland region and New Zealand military history.
- Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, which has strong holdings in Tāonga Māori, biological holotypes and New Zealand art.
- nzhistory.net.nz, from the History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.