Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/63

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A Leave-taking.
27
With a clamour the great sail steadies, In extreme of a storm scarce furled;Already a short wake eddies, And a furrow is cleft and curled  To the right and left.
About me, light-hearted or aching, “Good-bye!” cry they all, taking hand—What hand do I find worth taking? What face as the face of the land?I will utter a farewell greater Than any of friends in ships—I will leave on the forehead of Nature The seal of a kiss—let the lips  Of a song do this.
We part from the earth, from our mother, Her bosom of milk and of sleep,We deliver our lives to another, To cast them away or to keep.Many-mooded and merciless daughter, Uncertain, strange, dangerous sea,O tender and turbulent water! Make gentle thy strength, for in thee  We put trust for a length.
Float out from the harbour and highland That hides all the region I know,Let me look a last time on the island Well seen from the sea to the snow.The lines of the ranges I follow, I travel the hills with my eyes,For I know where they make a deep hollow, A valley of grass and the rise  Of streams clearer than glass.
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