Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/310

And once that faith in creeds is dead,
Their might is gone, their rule is o’er.

Yet lingered in his storied place,
Onawe’s spirit; though despair;
In windy tempests men might trace,
That showed the Atuas of the air
Were restless in their ancient hold,
Which ne’er again would faith enfold.
At last, upon a fatal day,
A young Ngai Tahu^[1] warrior came,
And fired a musket in his play!
A shudder shook the mountain’s frame;
A mighty tempest swept the deep:
The great waves rolled, the thunders pealed,
And dusky vapours sullen sweep
And hide the heavens with livid shield!

And o’er the summit of the storm
The Atua’s voice came stern and high,
And shadow of a mighty form,
Rose God-like towards the darkened sky.
“I go!” the giant spirit cried.
“Never again will Atua’s cry
Be borne on Whangaroa’s tide
To warn of stormy danger nigh.
But e’er I fly, Ngai Tahu hear:
Thy faithless race has dared profane
My sacred shrine, once held so dear,
With murderous offspring of the brain
Of that new race that swept away
The records of the ages past.
Deluded Maori! Thy brief day
Is setting, and the shadows vast
Close o’er Ngai Tahu’s hapless head,
Till it is numbered with the dead!