New Zealand Verse/Wellington
LXII.
Wellington.
Rugged she stands, no garlands of bright flowers
Bind her swart brows, no pleasant forest shades
Mantle with twining branches her high hills,
No leaping brooks fall singing to her sea.
Hers are no meadows green, nor ordered parks;
Not hers the gladness nor the light of song,
Nor cares she for my singing.
Rudely scarred
Her guardian hills encircle her pent streets,
Loud with the voices and the steps of trade;
And in her bay the ships of east and west
Meet and cast anchor.
Hers the pride of place
In shop and mart, no languid beauty she
Spreading her soft limbs among dreaming flowers,
But rough and strenuous, red with rudest health,
Tossing her blown hair from her eager eyes
That look afar, filled with the gleam of power,
She stands the strong queen city of the south.
Bind her swart brows, no pleasant forest shades
Mantle with twining branches her high hills,
No leaping brooks fall singing to her sea.
Hers are no meadows green, nor ordered parks;
Not hers the gladness nor the light of song,
Nor cares she for my singing.
Rudely scarred
Her guardian hills encircle her pent streets,
Loud with the voices and the steps of trade;
And in her bay the ships of east and west
Meet and cast anchor.
Hers the pride of place
In shop and mart, no languid beauty she
Spreading her soft limbs among dreaming flowers,
But rough and strenuous, red with rudest health,
Tossing her blown hair from her eager eyes
That look afar, filled with the gleam of power,
She stands the strong queen city of the south.