Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/168

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The Coming of Te Rauparaha.
“If ye choose me chieftain I shall lead youDown to meet the white-one on the sea-coast,Where his hordes shall break like scattered billowsFrom our wall of meres. Him o’erwhelming,
“I shall wrest his flaming weapons from him,Fortify for pah the rugged islandKapiti; then like a black hawk swoopingI shall whirl upon the Southern island,Sweep it with my name as with a tempest,Overrun it like the play of sunlight,Sigh across it like a flame, till TerrorRuns before me shrieking! And our pathwayShall be sullen red with flames and bloodshed,And shall moan with massacre and battle!
“Quenching every foe, beneath my manaTribe shall stand with tribe, till all my nationLike a harsh impassive wall of forestImperturbably shall front the strangers. . . .
“Then the name of me, Te Rauparaha,And the tribe I lead, the Ngatitoa,Shall be shrined in sacred myth and legendWith the glamour of our oft-told prowessWreathed about them! Think, we shall be savioursOf a race, a nation! And this islandWe have sown so thick with names—each hillock,Glen and gully, stream and tribal limit—Shall for ever blossom like a garden.
With the liquid softness of their music!And the flute shall still across the eveningLilt and waver, brimming with love’s yearning! . . .”
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