Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/61

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A Colonist in his Garden.
25
“No art?” Who serve an art more greatThan we, rough architects of State  With the old Earth at strife?“No colour?” On the silent waste,In pigments not to be effaced,  We paint the hues of life.
“A land without a past?” Nay, nay.I saw it, forty years this day.  —Nor man, nor beast, nor tree:Wide, empty plains where shadows passBlown by the wind o’er whispering grass  Whose sigh crept after me.
Now when at midnight round my doorsThe gale through sheltering branches roars,  What is it to the mightOf the mad gorge-wind that o’erthrewMy camp—the first I pitched—and blew  Our tents into the night?
Mine is the vista where the blueAnd white-capped mountains close the view.  Each tapering cypress thereAt planting in these hands was borne,Small, shivering seedlings and forlorn,  When all the plain was bare!
Skies without music, mute through time,Now hear the skylark’s rippling climb  Challenge their loftier dome.And hark! A song of gardens floats,Rills, gushes clear,—the self-same notes  Your thrushes flute at Home.
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