VI.

Wasting and weakening ever, day by day,
The 'Wailing Sea,' deep-wounded, lingering lay;
Or heavily dragged about his gaunt great frame,
With hollowing cheeks, and eyes that yet would flame
When news about his late assailants came,
And how his gallant clansmen on all hands
Made deadly havoc of their scattered bands.
The fatal ball that pierced his massive chest
Had torn an opening to his lungs their art
Could never close, although it healed in part;
So that where'er the gasping Chieftain drew
A labouring breath, the air came hissing through
At which in pure self-scorn he oft would jest,
Laugh a faint echo of his old great laugh,
And say he was already more than half
A ghost, and talked the language of the dead,
The whistling tones of spirits that have fled;
And Kangapo had best beware, or he
Would worry him, for all his witchery!
—But most he loved to spend his scanty breath
In urging all who stood his couch beside
To hold their own, whatever might betide;
Whate'er the odds, the arms, the Chiefs renowned
Assailed them, still unblenched to keep their ground.
And never, never yield—but fight till death!
page 414 And, when too weak to rise, his race nigh run,—
He made them lift him out into the sun:
Had all his favourite weapons round him laid—
The weapons of his glory, youth, and pride;
And these, while memory with old visions played
Of many a furious fight and famous raid,
He feebly handled—proudly, fondly eyed;
That heavy batlet hright of nephrite pure,
Green, smooth and oval as a cactus leaf—
'How heavy!'sighed he with a moment's grief;
But then what blows it dealt, how deadly sure—
Its fame and his for ever must endure!
And that great battleaxe, from many a field
Notched, hacked and stained, he could no longer wield,
How many a warrior's fate that blade had sealed!—
The others to his kinsmen he bequeathed,
But these he could not part with while he breathed.
Then all the musquets he could boast—but few—
And even his powder-kegs were set in view;
These were the Gods on whom he placed his trust
To guard and keep his tribe when he was dust;
These were the sacred symbols—holy books—
Whereon for comfort dwelt his dying looks.
—Thus all his Soul, in gesture, word and thought,
One blaze of high defiance of the Quiver
Of Death to quell or quench it—thus he fought
The gviesly Tyrant to his latest hour;
As Tongariro's fires flare upward red
And fierce, against the blackest clouds that shed
Their stormy torrents on his shrouded head!—
The Priest, in place of Kangapo supplied,
Sung ceaseless incantations at his side;
On him or them but little he relied.
And when the inevitable talons fast
page 415 Clutched his old heathen hero-heart at last;
When life's large flame slow-flickering fell and rose,
Death's shadows flapping closer and more close,
Still his unconquered Spirit strove to wave
Its fluttering standard of defiance high;
And "Kia tòa—kia tòa I O be brave,
Be brave, my Sons!"—he gasped with broken cry!
Then as the rattling throat and back-turned eye
Told his last moment come, the restless Priest,
With zeal to frenzy at the sight increased,
Seizing his shoulders, shook him to set free
His Spirit in its parting agony;
And bending o'er that dying head down-bowed,
Into its heedless ear kept shouting loud;
"Now, now, be one with the wide Light, the Sun!
With Night and Darkness, O be one, be one!"—
Then rushed the men about with furious yells;
Then clubs were brandished—every musket fired;
The women shrilled, and as stern use required
Their bosoms gashed with sharpened flints and shells;
Dogs barked and howled, the more the warriors leapt;
The Priest, like one madraving or inspired,
Still shouting his viaticum untired!
So while both men and women, old and young
Seemed by some demon to distraction stung—
Though Amo, better taught by Ranolf, kept
More self-command and only moaned and wept,—
So while this stormy hubbub round him swept,
The mighty Chief—the 'Wailing Sea,' expired.

Thus Tangi died;—not vastly grieved or vexed
To leave this world—or grave about the next.
He had his Heaven, be sure; where warriors brave
Found all the luxuries their rude tastes would crave;
page 416 Transparent greenstone glorious, in excess,
And lovelier-streaked than language could express;
Fairtinted feathercrests of stateliest plume;
Rare flaxen robes of silkiest glossiness;
Roots of the richest succulence, perfume,
And flavour, more than famine could consume;
And beauteous women of unwithering bloom!
All this would lure them, lapt in skies, serene
As on the long sweet summer-days are seen
When silver-cradled clouds soft-piled upturn
Their innocent white faces to the Sun;
Or spread o'er all the abyss of light a screen
With little cracks, unequal network, fine,
Like those-through which the firelogs' red hearts shine
While at the surface ashenwhite they bum.—
Of Paradise no lofty notion this—
Yet their ideal no less, of perfect bliss.
And whose is more?—Of all the heavens divulged.
Is there not still one staple, worst and best?
Sense, mental powers or moral, all indulged
And exercised with mightier sway and zest:
On infinite Perfection, say, entranced
In rapturous rest to dwell; or work its will,
With nobler strengths, aims evermore advanced:—
'Tis but your highest bliss you look for still!
You wish for the best state you can conceive,
Or something better which to God you leave;
To self-denying selfishness hold fast—
Denying Self as best for Self at last:
Who so unselfish as consent to fall
At last to lower life or none at all?
So 'tis for Happiness you press and pray—
The state most blest, define it how you may.
page 417 Are then your motives less by interest marred
Your self-devotion greater, self-regard
Much less than his—the heathen's—who so true,
So stanch and faithful to his simple creed
Of Courage for his Tribe's well-being, threw
His life away to win it, nor would deign
To waste a sigh upon his loss or pain;
And self-forgetful still, no more would heed
His gain—his not exceeding great reward.
That heaven of sweet potatoes?—yet confess
The merit greater as the meed was less.
Nor haply should his 'trust in God' be scorned,
Because, not naming Him whom none can name.
It was but Confidence, upheld the same,
By praises, prayers, professions unadorned,
In what was Right, his Duty, so he felt;
Because in that unconsciousness he dwelt
Much more upon the Duty to be done
To win it, than the guerdon to be won;
So did the Duty; cared for nought beside;
And let his Gods for all the'rest provide.

Two days in state the Chieftain's body lay,
In arms, mats, feathers, all his best array;
And women wailed and musquet-volleys rung
And funeral dirges were in chorus sung,
Which likened him to things below—above—
Best worth their admiration, pride and love;
Most precious trinkets of the greenstone jade—
Canoe-prows carved with most elaborate blade
And Irees of stateliest height—most sheltering shade;
Bade fiery mountains open to admit
Their hero to the Reinga's gloomy pit;—
page 418 Made breezes sigh and boiling geysers groan
In cavernous depths for their great Warrior gone;
Bade Tu, the God of War, look favouring down;
And all the mighty Shades of old renown
Welcome a Spirit who among them came
Proud as themselves, and of congenial fame!
Then to some secret cave and catacomb,
Of all their nobly born the ancient tomb,
In long procession slow, with chaplets crowned
Of fresh-plucked leaves, their dirge-timed way they wound:
There left the dead Form couched in lonely state,
The annual-rounding Sun's return to wait;
Then to be taken out with reverent care,
And the dry bones, corruption-clogged—laid bare—
With songs and savage rites and dances wild,
Cleansed from all fleshly fragments of decay;
And 'mid white skulls and skeletons up-piled,
In that most dreaded Sanctuary laid away.