THE PADDOCK
Toss, ye bright torches of fire!
While the ancients, gathered together,
Their bodies in warm repose,
In their spirits are playing and swaying also together,
Reciting, recounting, the one with the others,
Which the canoe was, who the descendants,
Hither of old from [1]Hawaiki faring;
The songs and the stories of old.
Ay, the young with the young, the old with the old—
It was, long ago—it is gone!
O my flock of white sea-birds, my children! Paoa,
O husband!....
Where the cold wind wrinkles my skin,
Where no voice comes, I lie.
Once a stately Totara in the forest
Tower’d high; its free and sun-warm’d summit
Lordly dwelt, alone in radiant air.
With its foot the earth was knit and strengthen’d,
With its shade was roof’d a home of greenness,
Gardens ’mid its roomy boughs were cradled.
And the Tui, and the flickering Fan-tail
Warbled, nested there, and reared their young.
—Axes rang!....
Lo! amid the towering tree-tops,
Space; but on the mosses, a long weight!
Now the [2]Kareao snaps, now the Kié-kié is brown’d and wind-eaten;
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