Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/308

Land of the forest and the hill!
Land of tall fern and tussock brown!
Where lake-like waters, calm and still,
Reflect the crags that o’er them frown;
Where mighty monsters of the deep—
The Taniwhas^[1] of ancient story—
Watched their grim infants’ happy sleep
Beneath the Southern planets’ glory!
Land of tall pine, of graceful vines,
Where tuis gurgle in the shade;
Where, in white wreaths, clematis twines,
And kaka screams in ferny glade.
How many a tale of passion past
Thy rocks could tell, if speech were given,
Of heroes struggling to the last,
Of dire revenge, of races driven
From this fair home—their last hopes riven!

Where the proud waves come swelling high
Up Whangaroa’s^[2] Harbour fair,
A peak mounts startling to the sky,
With base like some gigantic pear.
Sternly it meets the advancing tide,
And bids the crested horses stay.
The conquered waters, baulked, divide,
And form on either either side a bay;
And there, in those wild days of yore,
The Waka Maori^[3] floated light,
And many a dusky maiden saw
Her lover on some starry night,
And each read in the other’s eyes
The old, old story, that never dies.