Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/173
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The Last Haka.
137
As some innumerably-limbed machine,With rows of corresponding joints compactAll one way working from a single winch:The leaping, dense, conglomerate mass of menNow all together off the ground—in air—Like some vast bird a moment’s space—and thenDown, with a single ponderous shock, againDown, thundering on the groaning, trembling plain!And every gesture fury could deviseAnd practice regulate was rampant there;The loud slaps sounding on five hundred thighs;Five hundred hideous faces drawn aside,Distorted with one paroxysm wide;Five hundred tongues like one, protruding red,Thrust straining out to taunt, defy, deride;And the cold glitter of a thousand eyesUpturning white far back into the head;The heads from side to side with scorn all jerkingAnd demon-spite, as if the wearers triedTo jerk them off those frantic bodies workingWith such convulsive energy the while!—Thus—and with grinding, gnashing teeth, and fierceExplosions deep in oft narrated style,Those volleyed pants of heartfelt execration;Or showers of shuddering, hissing groans that pierceThe air with harsh accordance, like the crashWhen regiments their returning ramrods dashSharp down the barrel-grooves with quivering clangIn myriad-ringing unison—they lashTheir maddened souls to madder desperation!—Thus all the day their fury hissed and rang;So groaned, leapt, foamed, grimaced they o’er and o’er;Till all were burning, ere the Sun should soar,Against that stubborn Fort to fling themselves once more.