New Zealand Verse/To One in England
ii.
To One in England.
I send to you
Songs of a Southern Isle,
Isle like a flower
In warm seas low lying:
Songs to beguile
Some wearisome hour,
When Time’s tired of flying.
Songs of a Southern Isle,
Isle like a flower
In warm seas low lying:
Songs to beguile
Some wearisome hour,
When Time’s tired of flying.
Songs which were sung
To a rapt listener lying,
In sweet lazy hours,
Where wild-birds’ nests swung,
And winds came a-sighing
In Nature’s own bowers.
To a rapt listener lying,
In sweet lazy hours,
Where wild-birds’ nests swung,
And winds came a-sighing
In Nature’s own bowers.
Songs which trees sung,
By summer winds swayed
Into rhythmical sound;
Sweet soul-bells rung
Through the ngaio’s green shade,
Unto one on the ground.
By summer winds swayed
Into rhythmical sound;
Sweet soul-bells rung
Through the ngaio’s green shade,
Unto one on the ground.
Songs from an island
Just waking from sleeping
In history’s morning;
Songs from a land
Where night shadows creep
When your day is dawning.
Just waking from sleeping
In history’s morning;
Songs from a land
Where night shadows creep
When your day is dawning.
****
O songs, go your way,
Over seas, over lands;
Though friendless betimes,
Fear not, comes a day
When the world will clasp hands
With my wandering rhymes.
Over seas, over lands;
Though friendless betimes,
Fear not, comes a day
When the world will clasp hands
With my wandering rhymes.
Eleanor Elizabeth Montgomery.