Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/55

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The Dwellings of our Dead.
19

X.

The Dwellings of our Dead.[1]

They lie unwatched, in waste and vacant places,In sombre bush or wind-swept tussock spaces, Where seldom human treadAnd never human trace is— The dwellings of our dead!
No insolence of stone is o’er them builded;By mockery of monuments unshielded, Far on the unfenced plainForgotten graves have yielded Earth to free earth again.
Above their crypts no air with incense reeling,No chant of choir or sob of organ pealing; But ever over themThe evening breezes kneeling Whisper a requiem.
For some the margeless plain where no one passes,Save when at morning far in misty masses The drifting flock appears.Lo, here the greener grasses Glint like a stain of tears!
For some the quiet bush, shade-strewn and saddened,Whereo’er the herald tui, morning-gladdened, Lone on his chosen tree,With his new rapture maddened, Shouts incoherently.
  1. ↑ From Maoriland, and other Verses, by permission of the Bulletin Newspaper Company, Limited.
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