Shingle-Short and Other Verses/Burnt Bush
Burnt Bush.
Burnt Bush.
On the low bridge
In the depth of the gully,
At fall of the twilight
I linger’d, alone.
Naked, denuded,
Forestless, fernless,
Mute, now, and songless,
Sharp on sheer sky gape the lips of the gully;
Burden’d with black is the green of its pasture:
On whose long slopes
The sheep in their browsing
Must leap o’er a million,
Strewn, helter-skelter, headlong and helpless
Burnt bones of the Bush;
And, high on the hill-tops,
Once muffled with misty ever-green forest,
Gaunt tree-skeletons,
Tall blacken’d splinters,
Limbless, and leafless, and lifeless for ever,
In piteous distinctness
Starkly appear.
But, to me in my musing,
As on the low bridge in the depth of the gully,
At fall of the twilight I linger’d alone,—
Suddenly, silently,
Startling my spirit,
Peopled the air was!
Pulsing the gloom!
Presences alien, undescried, flitting,
Fann’d me with hosts of impalpable pinions,
Knock’d at the gates of my sense, but not enter’d,
Throng’d thick around!
And, Hark! as I listen’d,
Hark! where the River, the old River, [1]Mangi,
Came white through the gloaming,
Utterance met me, meaning his voice had,
Up from the darkness, clear came his meaning;
And, listening, the heart of me heard:
“Sorrow, ah, Sorrow!
Wailing, ah, wailing!
Wail, for They hearken!
Wail—They are dumb!
O Brethren departed, O Beings lamented!
Granted return in the moment of twilight—
I, the forsaken, I, the remainder,
Greet you, salute you! In this, your returning,
I, too, return....O Beloved, lament with me!
That which was pleasant is pleasant no longer,
That which was goodly is gone!
“Soft Arms of the Coolness,
Deep Breast of the Beauty
Of old, that embraced me:
Now—no way otherwise—
Ghostly I greet you!
O welcome and wayward
Gold glances of Sunlight,
That, peeping, withdrawing,
Then suddenly bursting
Through fringes of foliage,
Kiss’d me, of yore, to a radiant rapture—
Sad, I salute you!
....O Matai, O Maire,
Totara, Rimu!
Moss-hung, fern-footed,
Leaning towards me your burdens of [2]Kié-kié,—
Living and lofty, once more do I see you?
Near—O draw near!
Ah Tree-ferns! pavilion me.
Ground-ferns, and tender
Green mist of the Mosses,—
Touch me, O drink of me!
....Hark! Is it true?
The twitter of locusts,
More pleasant than prattle of pebble with rapid,
Again?....
O flute of the Tui!
More pure, smooth, cool,
Than coolest and clearest upbubbling of water..
O rustle of Rain!
....And the music, rising and falling,
The singing of leaves and boughs,
Sweet word of the Wind—Oh, again do I hear you, again?
Once again comes the glitter of light on the glossy [3]Karaka?
Ah, all the long day through,
Still came the light, but the glitter was gone.
O feet of the Fire! why sped ye so swiftly?
O Beauty! O Blooming! Why fail’d ye so soon?
All the day long,
Now, cruel-ey’d, o’er the wide wound about me,
The raw devastation, the uncover’d Death,
Stands, scrutinising, the terrible Sunlight.
—I must confront it!
All the night long
Now, unmelodious, barren, unfragrant,
Unillumin’d of loving, unhallow’d of healing,
Weighs and presses the undesir’d Dark:
—I must endure it!
Now, never-fill’d
Through the dark and the day,
Behind my one voice lies the thinness of Silence,
Past my sole voice the long silence of Death:
—And I must hear!
Yea, through the void light, through the blackness,
I, Mangi the River,
I, the sole relic
’Mid a world that I know not, of worlds that were mine:
Whole, unwounded, yet how mutilated,
Unchanged, plying what changéd labour:
Through ways familiar unfriended go!
Only as now, when the Day and Night are not,
Now, in the mystical moment of Twilight,
Brethren beloved! thus may I meet you,
Once more,—enfold you,
Feel you, regain you,
Break free from Sorrow, and bathe in your being
Thus, for a moment, again....
Then—Ah! already
Fading, forsaking?
....Forlorn! forsaken!
Again I lose you,
Again ye are gone!”
Over the paddock,
The pale Moon was lifting
The light of her forehead;
Down in the bare ravine,
Spiked with black shadow,
Bright was the flowing of Mangi, the River;
But, as I turn’d and ascended the gully,
Nought, save the flowing of water, I heard.
Far off, through the stretches
(Old forest, new pasture),
That over the gully,
High over the river,
Mountainward tend:
In-and-out the lean splinters,
See! firelight sparkling.
From the dead forest
(Old trees, but new timber),
Hark! voices echoing.
Through the Burnt Bush, and the little bare settlement,
Lo! transmuted but vital as ever,
(No more from fern, from green branches no more,
But from flesh-and-blood tissues, through eyes and through fingers,
From brains and from bosoms), laugh’d out the old magic
Of Nature, wise Mother of Forest and Man.