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Ranolf and Amohia

II

II

And when the talk began again,
Said Ranolf, "How do you explain,
You Maori, how the heavens were hung
Up there? who spread the azure main?
Whence Man and all things living sprung? "

Prompt was an ancient Dame's reply,
Of wrinkled cheek yet lively eye,
Who took the pipe from her blue lips
And sate in grizzled dignity,
Proud of her crest that towered so high
Of hoopoe-feathers, black with snowy tips;—
Prompt was that ancient Dame's reply—
Compact her scheme of rude Cosmogony:

  • "There was Night at the first—the great Darkness. Then. Pahpa, the Earth, ever genial, general Mother,
  • And our Father, fair Rangi—the Sky—in commixture un-bounded confusedly clave to each other;
  • And between them close cramped lay their children gigantic—all Gods, He the mightiest, eldest, the Moulder
  • And Maker of Man—whose delight is in heroes—Tumatau—the Courage-inspirer, the Battle-upholder;page 133
  • Tangaroa, far-foaming, the Sire of the myriads that silvery cleave the cerulean waters;
  • And the solemn and beauteous Tane, who gathers his stateliest, ever-green, tress-waving daughters
  • Into forests, the sunny, the songster-bethridden; then Rongo the peaceful, the kindly provider
  • Of the roots that with culture are milkiest, pithiest; he too, who flings them in wilder and wider
  • Profusion uncultured, nor needing it—Haumia j lastly, the fiercest of any, the Rider
  • Of Tempests—Tawhiri, joy-wild when his sons—when the Winds multitudinous rush with the rattle
  • Of hail and the sting of sharp showers and the hurry of turbulent clouds to aerial battle.
  • All these did the weight of vast Rangi o'erwhelm; there restlessly, rampantly, brother on brother
  • Lay writhing and wrestling in vain to get free from the infinite coil and confusion and smother;
  • Till the forest-God, Tane, with one mighty wrench irresistible prized his great parents asunder—
  • With his knotty and numberless talons held down—held the Earth and its mountain magnificence under,
  • Heaved the Heavens aloft with a million broad limbs shot on high, all together rebounding, resilient:
  • Then at once came the Light interfused, interflowing—serenely soft-eddying—crystalline—brilliant!—
  • Now the Sons all remained with the Earth but Tawhiri; he, sole, in tempestuous resentment receding
  • Swept away at the skirts of his Father—the Sky; but swiftly to vengeance and victory leading
  • His livid battalions, returned in his terrors, his kindred with torment and torture to harry:
  • Tangaroa rolled howling before him—even Tane bowed down; could his blast-besplit progeny parrypage 134
  • His blows, or withstand the full pelt of his torrents that flung them o'er wastes of white Ocean to welter?
  • Could Kongo do more ere he fled than conceal in the warmth of Earth's bosom his children for shelter?—
  • No! they shrank from the Storm-God amazed and affrighted. One brother—Tumatau—alone durst abide him,
  • Tumatau and Man stood before him unswerving, deserted by all, disregarded, defied him!
  • But Man that defection still punishes daily; with snare, net and spear still their offspring he chases.
  • Tangaroa's and Tane's—the feathered—the finny; still turns up and tears from her tender embraces
  • All that Rongo has laid in the lap of his Mother; while fiercely Tawbiri still plagues all their races—
  • Ever wreaks his wild anger on blue Tangaroa, and whirls into spray-wreaths the billows he lashes—
  • On the Earth whose rich berries and blossoms he scatters and scathes; on the forests he splinters and crashes;
  • And on Man who stands firm when his thunder is loudest and laughs when his lightning incessantly flashes!