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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 12 (March 1, 1937)

New Zealand Verse

page 51

New Zealand Verse

Old Paintings.

(National Art Gallery, Wellington.)

Through the dim corridor
Musing, I strayed,
Long rays of vesper light
Flickered and played;
Old voices seemed to call,
Breathing old names,
Old faces on the wall
Smiled in their frames;
Nobles in faded guise,
Sombre and shady;
Statesmen with steadfast eyes,
Bishop and lady.

“Brother,” they sang to me,
Sweetly and low,
“All you have pined to see,
We see and know;
Where you have longed to rise
We stand secure,
All your uncertainties
We have made sure;
Your strength begins to wane,
Ours is immortal;
We are within the fane,
You at the portal.

“All you are bearing now,
We, too, have born,
Through the long midnight hours
Waiting for morn;
Tried, tempted, purified,
Chastened full sore,
Oft in the noontide heat
Long did we languish;
Oh, but the rest is sweet
After the anguish.

“We, from our calm abode,
Speak to your soul,
Only the craven heart
Misses the goal!
Doubt is your direst foe,
Sorrow your friend,
Trust in your God, and go
Straight to the end;
So shall you stand at last
Tranquil and strong.”
Thus like a trumpet-blast,
Ended the song.

Destruction.

Silence, gentle silence, save the sound
Of birds, their ceaseless twitter
And a stream half-laughing in the ground,
And everywhere the bush,
The green New Zealand bush.

Giants, leafy giants, slender ferns,
The smell of tree trunks rotting,
And the music where a Tui learns
To tune his clever bill,
His sweetly chiming bill.

Changes, many changes now have come,
The years are ever passing,
Time leaves the imprint of his thumb,
And man must bring his axe,
His eager hungry axe.

Burning, fiercely burning are the trees,
Man's fire sweeps through the forest,
The glades I knew he never sees,
He goes his thoughtless way,
His murd'rous, foolish way.

To-day, again to-day I view the scene
Of little hills and valleys,
Barren now, where once the bush had been
In all its splendid green,
Its unspoilt native green.

Silence, mournful silence haunts the place,
And like some vast old graveyard,
Gaunt tree trunks mark the only trace
Of where there once was bush,
The green New Zealand bush.

Words of a Young Poet.

What! bitter mistress, must I give today,
Forswear the earthways where my feet would stray
In careless wanderings?
See where the green leaves prick the halcyon blue,
And waves wind-whipped to foam unceasing woo
The soft and virginal sand!
Is it not meet that I, a neophyte,
Should gather wealth of beauty such as might
Be given from me to you?
You hide your solace. Flowers ungarlanded
To you are as the clouds that last night fled
Across the moon—wind-spent.
So must I clip my beauties, lace them trim
And fashion filigree to match your whim,
Not mine! I merely serve.
This workroom! Here the zephyrs drift and fall
And will not stay.
The sun is but a glimmer on the wall,
And I have given to–day.

Nymph.

In brimming bowl the water-lilies gleam
With trembling cups and leaves like fretted lace;
Their hidden roots can feel a golden stir
Moving in finny shoals from place to place.
Time tarries in this grotto of delight,
Where twilight loiters and the dawn is long,
And doves fly down to drink, and lave their feet,
And passing thrushes, generous of song.
But high above the lilies and the pool
There dreams a nymph, a graven girl of stone,
Some pristine deity of sun and shade,
Who stands on tiptoe, naked and alone,
Reaching her hands to clutch a sleeping star
And pluck it from its cold and skyey bed,
Or yearning upward for a veil of cloud
To wreathe about her shining sculptured head.

page 52