Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/59

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A Colonist in his Garden.
23
“A land without a past; a raceSet in the rut of commonplace;  Where Demos overfedAllows no gulf, permits no height,And grace and colour, music, light,  From sturdy scorn are fled.
“I’ll draw you home. Lo! as I writeA flash—a swallow’s arrow-flight!  O’erhead the skylark’s wingsQuiver with joy at winter’s rout:A gust of April from without  Scents of the garden brings.
“The quickening turf is starred with gold;The orchard wall, rust-red and old,  Glows in the sunlight long.The very yew-tree warms to-day,As the sun-dial, mossed and grey,  Marks with a shadow strong.
“Tired of the bold, aggressive New,Say, will your eyes not joy to view,  In a sedater clime,How mellowing tones at leisure steal,And age hath virtue scars to heal,  And beauty weds grey Time?"

He speaks.

Good wizard! Thus he weaves his spell.Yet, charm he twenty times as well,  Me shall he never spur,To seek again the old, green land,That seems from far to stretch a hand  To sons who dream of her.
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