THE PADDOCK
Over the noble lumber, the [1]Bramble, the envious Tataramoa
Springing up, flourishes green:
But with pinion’d crown the Tree-fern
See! ’mid growths upheav’d and broken,
See a miserable [2]horokio
Whose appealing roots drink air!
Root in the rocks, once, fingers in the sea-waves,
Surest of swimmers among the eddying surges,
Thick grew the [3]Rimurapa, fringing the shore,
Thick grew the long-shore kelp:
A mat for the feet of the ripples, as the breast of the [4]Pukeko duskily blue:
A crown of bright locks to the water, a laugh to the eyes of the sun.
And the waters stay’d it, the sun caress’d it;
Once, with its long-washing tendrils,
With power, it protected the sacred head of a chief.
—Storms arose!....
By the sea that fed, by the billows that bosom’d,
Tugg’d, torn-up, dragg’d over the biting reef,
High on the thirsty sand,
What ails thee, O Rimurapa? that tarnish’d and stiff,
To the suppling deep thou return’st not?
“It is dry, it is brittle; ah, ah, it is dingy, it stinks!
Out on the wretched remainder!
On my kumara-patch let it perish!”
Shall one contemptuously say.
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