THE PADDOCK
On that, the limitless Sea!
O Land, once friendly and loved!—
Peak and gully and swamp,
Boisterous heart of the rivers, [1]weary knees of the rivers,
Sea-beach, kumara-patch,
Tracks long travers’d and trod:
—O Land, forlorn and estranged!
Bare of welcoming roofs,
Emptied of faces and eyes,
A foe unto tired feet,
(Hark!)
For you my face and my eyes,
For you are my feet no more!
Turn thither, O feet, with my face
(Hark!) whence cometh the word,
Awaited, well-understood,
—To the great Sea!
O roadless Road through darkness and depth, by
which none ever return!
O Track untried, that leadeth, whither? Whether
to darkness or light?
Light in the land of some heavenly Hawaiki, past
the horizon,—
Or the long, long night of our fathers, Te Po, ever-
everlasting Night?
Is it true, what our fathers have told us?
Or true, what the Pakeha says?
Who can tell?
Yet, can the night of [2]Te Reinga be darker to me
Than the light of this world is become?
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