THE PADDOCK
Then comes Old Age!
Tired, tired his heart, and his full strength a sleep.
The glow is fled, the glory all is gone,
—Lo! that which was to be is that which is!
Who, then, art thou,
Hine, O presumptuous one,
That through thy limbs the life-tide yet should laugh,
And in thy cheek the finger of years not lie?
Who, Hine, thou—
Daughter of [1]Te Rawhiti, daughter of great Tipitai,
Daughter of Kapu—of the dead, who died—
That thou alone should’st elude the experience eluded of no man?
—Who thou, thyself?
[2]Maui, perhaps? Art thou even as Maui, thou totterer?
For thee will the sun stand still?
More art thou, mightier, than Maui-tiki-tiki?
Who, having broken the swift sun’s pinions,
Who, out of Heaven fire having fetch’d us,
And on his finger having lifted Earth from Ocean—
Hine-nui-te-po having finally attempted,
Daughter of the Dark, to cheat and overmaster,
Master of cunning, he master’d was—he died!
Nay, be wise!
The night is yoked with the day, after the sun, the thunder,
The berry once ripe, doth it ever grow green?
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