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The years roll on in this new land that gems the Southern Sea,
As many an aged pioneer can prove right wearily;
Men that shaped out the future for the thousands of their race,
Who needed sore in crowded homes a new abiding place.
They taught this stubborn earth to smile with Europe’s plants and flowers;
They made the primal rocks reveal a Danaé’s golden showers;
They bridged the flood, they drained the swamp, they tore the forest down,
And made the golden corn to smile where waved the tussock brown.
Nor they alone the victory won, for by their sides there stood
Fall many an angel of the wild, a heroine of the wood,
Who urged them forth to high emprise, or where misfortune fell,
Would many a word of peace and hope and gentlest comfort tell;
Who, like the rata, when the pine is tottering to its fall,
Still held them in strong loving bands and made them tower o’er all;
And should not they who reap the toil of all those early days,
Give to the veterans their meed of due and hard earned praise?
Remember in luxurious days the trials of the past,
And trumpet forth these heroes’ deeds with no uncertain blast.
Tis more than fifty years ago that Waitemata heard