page 90

II.

Now at the time whereof we tell,
The white man's creed—the potent spell
Of civilised communion had begun
Their work about the borders of the land:
Before that higher light, and influence bland
(As night recedes long ere you see the sun)
The most revolting vices of the race,
Among ev'n those who never would embrace
The new belief—child-murder and the feast
That sinks the cannibal below the beast.
His better there—the ghouilike foul disgrace,
Had slunk away abashed and wholly ceased.
As, when you turn upon a sea-creek's shore,
Some limpet-crusted boulder o'er,
The reptile life that swarmed and skulked beneath
So close that nothing there had seemed to breathe—
Sea-centipedes and purple crabs and worms
Threadlike, blood-red—and limbless fleshy forms.
Swiftly or slowly—all before the light,
Shrink—wriggle—scuttle sidelong out of sight—
So had those viler vices taken flight

And Tangi and his tribe thus much had gained.
Those vices lost, but all their gods retained.
A love of change was never fault of his,
And least he fancied such a change as this.
Once when a zealous teacher from the
North The terrors of his creed had thundered forth
Unfolded with keen zest and kind desire
To save his hearers from so sad a fate,
page 91 His pleasant faith in everlasting fire,
And painted all the pangs the damned await—
While horror blanched the cheeks of half the crowd,
Old Tangi roared with laughter long and loud:
That Hell of theirs, he said, might be a place
Wholesome and fitting for the white man's race,
No Maori was half bad enough to be
Doomed to so horrible a destiny:
Had a good Spirit destined for such woe
His children after death, he long ago
Had sent some trusty friend to let them know;
But he for his part would have nought to do
With any Atna,^* whether false or true,
Who could delight his direst foe to see
The victim of such monstrous cruelty.
And when he learnt what adverse sects prevailed
And how each other's doctrines they assailed,
He held his hand out, with the fingers spread—
"So many ways to heaven you teach," he said;
"When you have fixed the right one and none doubt it,
"Twill then be time for me to think about it"

Sometimes indeed when young hardheaded minions
From seaside tribes would urge these new opinions.
Our Chief, for argument was not his forte,
With calm remonstrance tried to cut them short:
What all their ancestors and his believed
Why could not they? that which was good enough
For them, might well content, as he conceived,
Such youngsters;—husky grew his voice and gruff: "
What I give up all our good old ways—-the charms
And ceremonies practised all our lives

page 92 To make our Men all warriors, brave in amis,
Our Women skilful, chaste, industrious wives—
Give up our wars—war-dances-—iauas ^*—taboo,
Whence all our wealth, and power, and fame accrue,
For these new notions I were they all to cease
For this effeminate creed of love and peace!"—
But when the good old Chief found all he felt
So strongly had no power to move or melt
His tough opponents, he the point pursued
No further—bin with self-complaisance stout
Closed with that comfort—wherein oft no doubt
Much abler controversialists conclude—
"'Twas self-sufficiency—'twas downright mere
Conceit that would not see a case so clear—
'Twas rage for talk, or love of contradiction.
That would not be convinced "—by his conviction!

And so a hearty heathen he remained,
And those new whimsies quietly disdained;
He fed his Gods and fee'd his priests so well,
What was to him the white Man's heaven or hell?
A Priest himself and half a God or quite,
Did not the elements confess his might?
At least all said so—and if failure wrought
Misgiving, still desire constrained his thought;
The failure proved the counteracting spite
Of rival Gods into collision brought,—
Against his own pretensions argued nought.
Nor wonder this should be; when low and base
Man's notions of a God, and vain and high
Those of himself, as with a barbarous race
And minds uncultured ever is the case,

page 93 Men may believe their own divinity:
Manhood and Godhood come so near together
They may be made to mingle and agree
Without much stretch of Faith's or Fancy's tether.
And thus our Chieftain felt; if he excelled
In attributes for which his Gods were held
Divine—might he not be their equal too?
Could he not at his pleasure save or slay,
A Lord of life and death as well as they?
And for those elements—'twas but mistaking
The still unknown and so obscure relations
Between the Spirit mystical out breaking
Through all the manifold manifestations
Of Nature, and the surer Spirit illuming
His own as mystic Being, and mastery thence,
In pride of his superior excellence,
Over that other phase of Spirit assuming.