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The New Zealand Reader

Death Of The Magician

Death Of The Magician.

A Hand, upon her shoulder laid,
With sudden startling pressure stayed
Her anguish in its mid career;
Though not the slightest sound betrayed
A human being's presence near.
'Twas Kangapo! who silent crept
Upon her, thinking that she slept;
Till, as he neared the weeping maid,
Her heart-wrung moans the truth conveyed.
When Amo raised in wild surprise
Her tear-bedabbled face and eyes,
And saw whose form above her hung;
Whose spiteful, cool, triumphant leer
Into her grief would pry and peer,
Indignant to her feed she sprung:
"You, Kangapo! and wherefore here? "
"Nay, rather," was the answering sneer,
"Say what has brought to such disgrace,
Such evil plight, so lone a place,
The stranger's love—the white man's bride!
Has he, whose pale and girlish face
Could win, despite her birth and race,
Her tribe's renown—her father's pride,
The Maori maiden to his side—
Has he turned false, or fled—or died?"
page 225 "Ask nought of him; no mate of thine;
Thy course pursue—leave me to mine!"
"Nay—listen, Amo! let me tell——"
"Away! I know thy wiles too well!"
No longer now his darkening brow
And coldly-glittering eye instilled
The terror that whene'er he willed
Had once the maiden's bosom chilled.
The might of one supreme despair
Would let no lesser passion share
That bosom; one absorbing care
Had left no room for terror there.
She sought not to upbraid, reply;
Too sad for scorn, she turned to fly.
He saw his words their purpose missed,
Yet would not from his aim desist:
"Not listen! so resolved to go!—
Think not you shall escape me so;—
Think not I've no assistance nigh!"—
With sudden grasp he seized her wrist
And shouted. Then once more her eye
Shot forth its proud indignant light;
Her form expanded to full height;
She looked almost as when she stood
A captive bound beside the wood
When first she dazzled Ranolf's sight;
Yet now so haggard, wan and worn,
By grief of so much beauty shorn,
Not much more like that vision bright
Of anger-flashing loveliness,
Than some too early perished tree,
A silver skeleton pourtrayed
Against the mountain's violet shade,
Like its own former self would be
In luxury clad of leafy dress;
In sunlit symmetry of frame
And every sinuous branch the same;
But all the wealth wherewith it shone
Of blossom gay and verdure—gone!—
The wrist he held—she wrenched it free,
And flung him off with all her might.
page 226 He reeled—he stumbled—staggered back;
Nor had he seen how near he stood
To that fierce cauldron, sputtering black
And baleful—ever-boiling mud—
Beneath the phantom-shapes of rock
That seemed to gibber, jeer, and mock!
The treacherous bank began to crack—
Gave way, and with a sullen plash
He plumped into the viscous mash.
The sable filth upspurted high—
Foul steam in thicker volumes gushed;
Then back the burning batter rushed
And closed o'er that despairing face
Upturned in blue-lined agony—
Those writhing limbs—that stifled cry!
Then heavily swelled into a cone;
Sunk down; and ring on ring a space
In sluggish undulations rolled;
And thicklier rising crowds alone
Of bubbles, of that horror told;
Though just as lazily they burst,
And not more poisonous than at first
Their old sulphureous stench dispersed.

Alfred Domett

("Ranolf and Amohia").