Ranolf and Amohia :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ranolf and Amohia

A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised

Domett, Alfred (1811-1887)

II.

BOOK THE FOURTH. A LATTER-DAY EDEN.

Canto the First. Flight of the Lovers.

Canto the Second. Miroa's Story.

Canto the Third. Love and Nature luxuriant.

Canto the Fourth. Trees and the Tree-God.

Canto the Fifth. The Fountain-Terraces.

Canto the Sixth. A Geyser Yoked.

Canto the Seventh. English Maidens.

BOOK THE FIFTH. STILL IN EDEN.

BOOK THE SIXTH WAR.

BOOK THE SEVENTH. SELF-SACRIFICE.

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

BOOK THE FOURTH. A LATTER-DAY EDEN.

Canto the First. Flight of the Lovers.

1. The Lovers leave Rotorua. Provisions. 2. Love dependent on lower deities. 4. Scenery. Forest; Swamps. 5, 6. The Sea-shore. 7. The Apteryx. Extempore hut. 9. Heavy rain. 10. Their amusements inside. 11. A model for sculpture. 12. Beauty of female form.

I.

The dawn, faint-tinted as a yellow rose,
Peeped behind mountains purple-black as sloes;
O'er these—a tuft of thick short shreds (not rays)
Of brilliancy, the Morning Star ablaze—
Awe-struck forerunner of the Sun beneath,—
On the funereal darkness seemed to gaze,
Checked at his sudden entrance on a scene
Solemn with all the sable pomp of death,
The thousand lights still burning for the Queen
Laid out in state—the just departed Night.—
Then Amo, starting from her brief repose,
Urged upon Ranolf their immediate flight;
For fly they must from that dread Priest she said,
Or even her Father by his counsels led.

Vain Ranolf's reasoned wish to try his skill
Upon her sire, and bend perchance his will
Into approval of their love.—“Nay—nay—
Fly—fly!” she prayed, and he of course gave way:
A power there's no resisting or ignoring,—
A loving, loved and lovely one imploring!
True, the romance of her proposal charmed;
As o'er its possibilities he ran,
Visions of risks defied his fancy warmed.
To steal by night through unsuspecting foes,
Or baffle them suspecting, was a plan
At which his buoyancy of spirit rose.
His followers therefore quickly paid—dismissed—
Were Northward with his light effects sent back.
One lad of Amo's tribe would still insist
(Te Manu 'twas, who brought the fish that day,
And served him since for pleasure and some pay)
Out of new love for him and old for her—
He should not from their side be forced to stir;
Pleading his usefulness—to bear a pack,
Cook—work—provide such comforts they would lack;
Nay, to their safety sometimes minister.

So be it then. What needs is promptly done;
Revolver trim and double-barrell'd gun,
Powder and shot and fish-hooks not a few,
And axe, and matches, most essential too;
Some extra mats for tent-roofs against rain;
And—better currency than minted gold,
A savage's best treasures to unfold—
Allowance good of treacle-smelling cakes
Of jammed tobacco-plaits; with odds and ends,
The boy at cost of carrying would retain

Of fancied value to himself or friends—
Light shoulder-burdens—he or Ranolf takes.

II.

Prosaic details, truly! Lady mine—
Who hold ethereal Love a power divine;
O let it not your fervid faith displease,
Romance so realistic stoops to these!
Love is the prime of Gods—O clearly!
A Thaumaturge and Master-mage is he;
Let all confess him as puissant—nearly—
As he conceits himself to be!
Yes! yes! we know, and none deny,
All risks, all ventures He will try,
All checks and chances dare—defy!
To his great heart and hope elate
What are the threats of adverse Fate!
How fade the frowns of Circumstance
Before his forward-leaping glance!
His course that ever forth and far
Seems trained by some triumphant Star
Shall rivers bound, shall mountains bar?—
One look, and lo! from mouth to fountain
Uprising from its gravelly bed,
Each river, shrunk to a silver thread
Floats gossamer-like across the lea;
One waive or nod of hand or head,
And every forest-puckered mountain
Rocked from its base uneasily
Goes crab-like lumbering to the Sea!—
Shall not the Ocean heave up pearls
To deck one Beauty's golden curls?

Shall not the Stars come trickling down
If one dear brow demand a crown?—
Yes, fair ones! so shall you decree,
And youthful hearts shall all agree
In Love's divine supremacy!
Though duller Deities the while
May at his proud pretensions smile?
Bid Cold and gaunt-eyed Hunger clip
The splendour of his purple wings;
And from his graceful shoulders strip
The golden bow, the ivory quiver,
Unless across them too he flings
The wallet vile and vulgar scrip,
Replete with gross substantial things;
Nay, make the beauteous stripling shiver
Unless to some frieze cloak he clings;
Nor, jealous, let the bright Joy-Giver
From Psyche's mouth the honey sip,
And purse and press her sweet lips out
To semblance of a tempting pout,
Or round them bud-like for the bliss
Of a playful passionate kiss,
Till with his own he first have blown
Each rosy frozen finger-tip.
Ah sad! this glowing glorious God to see,
And think what paltry hests and heeds may be
Importunate, imperative as he!

III.

So to the forests on Taupiri's face
O'er the low cliffs at first the three retreat

There they can find a handy hiding-place,
And Amohia rest through noonday heat.
At nightfall they retrace their steps at first
Uncertain—guided by immediate need
Of shelter—and resolve their course to shape
By Amo's counsel for the land that nursed
Her mother, whose great brother ruled indeed
O'er all the tribes about the earliest Cape
The Sun salutes when his resplendent hair
Shakes off the foam-flakes of his Ocean lair.
There she was well-beloved; and both might there,
She for her mother's, he for her sake, share
The nigh-related Chief's protecting care,
Secure alike from rescue and pursuit
With one so potent of such good repute.
So North of Roto-iti, East away,
And for the seaside by the Bounteous Bay,
Though from the route direct still given to stray,
They travel; resting in the woods by day
When needful, and by villages at night
Passing with cautious speed; and none the less
On Ranolf's part, with undisguised delight
At all the shifts, suspenses, and success
And stealthy freedom of their dexterous flight.

IV.

And thus o'er many a mountain wood-entangled,
And stony plain of stunted fern that hides
The bright green oily anise; and hill-sides
And valleys, where its dense luxuriance balks
With interclinging fronds and tough red stalks
The traveller's hard-fought path—they took their way.

Sometimes they traversed, half the dreary day,
A deep-glenned wilderness all dark and dank
With trees, whence tattered and dishevelled dangled
Pale streaming strips of mosses long and lank;
Where at each second step of tedious toil
On forms of fallen trunks moss-carpeted,
Perfect to every knot and bole, they tread,
And ankle-deep sink in their yielding bed
Of rottenness for ages turned to soil:—
Until, ascending ever in the drear
Dumb gloom forlorn, a sudden rushing sound
Of pattering rain strikes freshly on the ear,—
'Tis but the breeze that up so high has found
Amid the rattling leaves a free career!
To the soft, mighty, sea-like roar they list:—
Or else 'tis calm; the gloom itself is gone;
And all is airiness and light-filled mist,
As on the open mountain-side, so lone
And lofty, freely breathing they emerge.
And sometimes through a league-long swamp they urge
Slow progress, dragging through foot-sucking slush
Their weary limbs, red-painted to the knees
In pap rust-stained by iron or seeding rush;
But soon through limpid brilliant streams that travel
With murmuring, momentary-gleaming foam
That flits and flashes over sun-warmed gravel
They wade, and laughing wash that unctuous loam
Off blood-stained limbs now clean beyond all cavil
And start refreshed new road-knots to unravel.

And what delight, at length, that glimpse instils,
That wedge-shaped opening in the wooded hills,
Which, like a cup, the far-off Ocean fills!—

V.

Anon they skirt the winding wild sea-shore;
From woody crag or ferny bluff admiring
The dim-bright beautiful blue bloom it wore—
That still Immensity—that placid Ocean—
With all its thousand leagues of level calm,
Tremendously serene! he, fancying more
Than feeling, for tired Spirits peace-desiring,
With the world-fret and life's low fever sore—
Weary and worn with turmoil and emotion,—
The soothing might of its majestic balm.

Or to the beach descending, with joined hands
They pace the firm tide-saturated sands
Whitening beneath their footpress as they pass;
And from that fresh and tender marble floor
So glossy-shining in the morning sun,
Watch the broad billows at their chase untiring:
How they come rolling on, in rougher weather,—
How in long lines they swell and link together,
Till, as their watery walls they grandly lift,
Their level crests extending sideways, swift
Shoot over into headlong roofs of glass
Cylindric—thundering as they curl and run
And close, down-rushing to a yeasty dance
Of foam that slides along the smooth expanse;
Nor seldom, in a streaked and creamy sheet
Comes unexpected hissing round their feet,
While with great leaps and hurry-skurry fleet,
His louder laughter mixed with her's so sweet,
Each tries to stop the other's quick retreat.

VI.

Or else on sands that, white and loose, give way
At every step, they toil; till labour-sped
Their limbs in the noon-loneliness they lay
On that hot, soft, yet unelastic bed,
With brittle seaweed, pink and black o'erstrown,
And wrecks of many a forest-growth upthrown,
Bare stem and barkless branches, clean, sea-bleached,
Milk-white,—or stringy logs deep-red as wine,
Their ends ground smooth against a thousand rocks,
Dead-heavy, soaked with penetrating brine;
Or bolted fragment of some Ship storm-breached
And shattered—all with barnacles o'ergrown,
Grey-crusted thick with hollow-coned small shells—
So silent in the sunshine still and lone,
So reticent of what it sadly tells;
Which Ranolf then imagines till he shocks
Quick-sympathizing Amo with a tale
Of brave men lost, and haply lovers gone
For ever—never heard of nor forgot;
And so beguiles the bright one of her tears,
Which, while he kisses the wet cheek so pale
He charms away, and the sweet mourner cheers,
Hinting the contrast of their happier lot:
Then turns to livelier sights the scene supplied;
And near some river-mouth—shoal—marshy-wide—
Would mark the swarming sea-birds o'er the waste
Tremble across the air in glimmering flocks;
Or how, long-legged with little steps they plied
Their yellow webs, in such high-shouldered haste
Pattering along the cockle-filled sandbanks,

Some refuse dainty of the Sea to taste;
Or standing stupified in huddled ranks
Still rounded up by the advancing tide—
White glittering squadrons on the level mud
Dressing their lines before the enclosing flood;
Or what strange instinct guided them so well,
Posed by their mollusk, up in air to start,
And soaring, on the rocks let fall the shell
Whose stubborn valves they could not force apart.

VII.

And once, hard by a gloomy forest-side,
Death-still and stirless all—save where one sees
A shaking glimmer of silver through the trees—
How Amo clapped her hands in pure delight
At Ranolf's puzzled wonder when he spied
What seemed so surely—for 'twas clear in sight—
Some furry three-legged thing—no tail—no head—
Fixed to the ground—a tripod!—how amazed
Was he to find when serpent-like it raised
Long neck and bill, and swiftly running fled,
'Twas nothing but that wing-less, tail-less bird
Boring for worms—less feathered too than furred—
The kiwi—strange brown-speckled would-be beast,
Which the pair hunted half the day at least,
While needful look-out young Te Manu kept.
Or else the lovers, tired or cautious, stepped
From the chalk-bouldered, pumice-crumbling strand
On to black broken-edged o'erlapping land;
And o'er the flax-swamped rushy level then

Betook themselves to some inviting wood
Just at the black-green opening of a glen
Where mighty trunks—grim shadowy columns—stood,
Solemn, expectant,—promising so meet
A shelter for their day or night retreat.
Shore-loving vine-trees, púriri, they were
The enormous mounds that, piled in swelling state,
Seemed cracking only with the very weight
Of light green foliage-masses everywhere
So caked, smooth-rounded and consolidate.

—How free—how free it was! nothing it seemed,
Between themselves and God! so Ranolf felt;—
That world of Man, how oft it seemed to melt
Wholly away! his Soul in contact brought
With Nature's nakedness, exulting teemed
With raptures Life refined had never bought;
Proud vigour from her vivid touches caught;
And from the exhilarating hale embrace
Drew hardier, wilder will to set at nought
All risks—and dauntless every danger face!—
Yet little this was needed now—although
Amo could not her anxious fears forego;
For dread of all that Priest might prompt destroyed
Half of the pleasure she had else enjoyed.

VIII.

Now, through some dim white days of ceaseless rain,
They waited till the sky should clear again,
Roofed by a hut no woodman would demur

To call a palace for a forester.
Amid the trees—where loftiest towering grew
Some spiny-leaved totáras like the yew,
Root-buttressed, forty yards or so in height,—
They—ere the mist first gathering blanched the blue
Though many a sign that threatened rain they knew—
Had built a hasty homestead snug and tight.
Some of these trees, notch-circled near the ground,
That for such end their bark might well be dried,
Or trunks be seasoned for canoes, they found;
Their stringy coats were easily off-stripped,
In stripes, long, broad and heavy, upward ripped;
These, fastened on a frame of poles flax-tied,
Slant roof and walls against the windward side—
Made such a pleasant dwelling in six hours
As had withstood a month of drenching showers;
Thick fern and broom were fragrant floor and couch;
And to the sweetclean roof and walls upslung,
Guns, shot-belt, matches, flints and powder-pouch
And change of raiment, dry and safely hung.

IX.

In this retreat three quiet days they passed
In perfect shelter; and the time flew fast,
Though to the hut they mostly were confined,
And spite of care that lurked in Amo's mind.
Love wrapped in sunshine that rain-beaten bower,
Made prisoned solitude and silence dear;
Her care diverted, half-assuaged her fear;
Surcharged e'en trivial chat with eloquent power;

To slight details of daily intercourse
Gave magic sweetness and electric force;
Nay, lent to weeping Nature's gloomier hour
A gentle charm they ne'er before descried
When bathed in brilliant light her features smiled.
So Ranolf felt when over wood and wild
That quiet sadness first began to creep;
And sheltered safe within their mountain-nook
On his fern-pillow he could lie and look
Past forest tree-tops surging down the steep,
With rocks out-slanting bold, dark-red and grey—
Through the glen's mouth, o'er yellow plains outside,
Mixed with the skies, it seemed, so high and wide—
Melting to misty dimness far away;—
Look—but to feel with more supreme content
That luxury of loneliness profound—
No human soul but theirs for miles around;
Feel how serenely, pensively forlorn
The tender silence of the tearful Morn;
Of those unmoving trees as still as thought,
And leaves imbibing in their happy sleep
Rich greenness ever more refreshed and deep;
Each branch with bright drops hung that would not fall:
The faint blue haze upon the grass; while nought
But the slight tremble, shimmering on the shade
So glowing dark about their stems, betrayed
The fine soft rain's inaudible descent.

Then, as the thickening weather with its pall
Of gloom shut out the distant hills and sky,
How pleasant there to lounge secure and mark
Emerging from the mists in forests high

Black jutting trees to shadows turn, and fade,
Where sullen, ragged, smothering vapours weighed
Upon the nearer summits; or when wind
Arose, and hurried up the storm, behind
Their hill-protected hut and roof of bark—
To mark each sudden, snowy, crooked skein
With fibres opening here and there, appear
Along the sloping hollows all pure green
But now—inlaid between round knolls, and seen
White through thin clouds of level-driving rain.

X.

And then within their wildwood home, what cheer—
What manifold amusements might be found!
What pleasure in the necessary round
Of primitive provisions for so rude
A life—whose mere privations still endued
The hours that flew so fast with fleeter wings;
The merry makeshifts, and the thousand things
To tax contrivance, whence ingenious tact
A double comfort from discomfort wrings:
Scant implements still put to novel use;
Forced partnership in many a little act
For which e'en Love had else scarce found excuse.
Then Ranolf had in note-book to record
Brief hints of many an incident or word
That might the vivid memory reproduce
Of these bright scenes far hence when they should be
Forgotten into freshness. Or he made
Upon the inside smoothness of a square
Of that stripped bark, with pistol-barrel ruled,
Draft-chequers,—clipping flat for draughtsmen rare

Hard violet drupes of the great laurel-tree
And gold karaka-dates—and soon had schooled
His quick companion in the game they played
For kisses like Campaspe! though, he said,
Amo from Cupid had not cared to win
Cheek-bloom—lips bow-curved—tender turn of chin—
Hers sweeter far already! Or he strove
With taste, and skill—but not in like degree—
Still quickened, still impeded by his love—
Sketch-book on knee, to reproduce, though slight,
Some glimpses of the spirit-winning light
That danced in dazzling depths of Amo's eyes—
Some of her shape's enchanting symmetries;
While she, with wondering bright compliance bore
The frequent interruptions and delay
To the immediate work she had in hand,
As he so oft entreated her to stay
In that position just one moment more—
Just to continue so to kneel or stand—
Reach up—bend over—let him seize the charm
Of some fine posture, planted foot, or arm
Upraised, that any Sculptor's heart might warm.

XI.

And truly, every instant she displayed
A look or attitude that would have made
A Phidias turn admiring, though intent
On one fastidious finishing touch, the last—
One pumice-polish, warm wax-stain, that lent
Perfection to some wonder, now complete,

Some marble miracle or famous feat
Chryselephantine, all the world to beat,
And stamp his own surpassing self surpassed!
Though on his ears, already charmed, he felt
Aspasia's clear Milesian accents melt
In critic subtleties of praise that seize
The heart of his conception, and excite
The stoic soul of stately Pericles
Into confest emotions of delight.
Some look or gesture was each instant shown
That with as happily-tempting hints—assured
Forecast of chiselled triumphs, had allured
A Flaxman, say, that Phidias of our own—
As when at his soul's call, with beauty aflame
And dignity and grace immortal, came
(All chastened—checked by Art's severest curb—
Harmonious calm no passion could disturb)
Trooping divinities in grand array,
As if Olympus were his freehold—they
His tenants—slaves—who heard but to obey!—

But as the busy Maid would oft look round
With brows and high-upcurling lashes raised
And such a glance, what Ranolf wished—to ask—
Bright glance of innocent inquiry—sweet
Alert attention; or would leave her task,
And throw herself beside him on the ground
To see what 'twas that he would sometimes look
Half-pleased with, proud of, in the fast-leaved book
Where he “wrote images”—then with such heat
Would “pish” and “pshaw” at, as on her he gazed,
Abused the work so much—the model praised;

There, as she watched him, toying all the while
With those light locks she loved so, with a smile
Where such a depth of playful fondness shone;
Did she not then the very vision seem
Young Foley saw, when, scarce to manhood grown,
He brought old Athens back in that bright dream
Of Ino feeding her maternal joy
On purple temptings of her grape-fed boy?—
Or that which bade his great compeer achieve
The new-born loveliness of listening Eve?

XII.

But could wise Nature's so conspicuous Art,—
Lavish of might divinest to unfold
The gleam and glory of mere human limbs
Which all beside of form and hue bedims,—
If ever, fail with this susceptive heart
And fiery Sense, in her design to raise
That fervid admiration, uncontrolled
And uncontrollable, she must intend
Should ne'er be foiled for fairest moral end?—
No! well might that pure form, as he surveys
Its rich proportions cast in such a mould—
The perfect mould of Beauty, that combines
Rare lightness with luxuriance, and displays
What subtle joy can lurk in sinuous lines
That in their delicate winding wavure seem
Self-singing of their fine felicities
Like musical meanderings of a stream;
Well might its melodies of movement thrill
His soul with rapture—dash his baffled skill
With blank despair, as lovingly he tries

To fix the fluent loveliness—portray
Some one perfection from the plastic play
Of flitting statue-pictures that displace
Each other, and successive charms efface
In ever new varieties of grace!

Canto the Second. Miroa's Story.

1. Te Manu scouting. Native dainties. 2. News of Tangi's forgiveness and the Magician's departure. 3. Story of Miroa's love. Children's games. 4. Her secret. 5. Her song. 6. Previous love-symptoms. 7. Hopes for her. 8. Fine weather. The hut left.

I.

So in the glen three days had well-nigh passed;
The pelting rain seemed holding up at last.
Ranolf and Amo in their bark-built tent
Were busy; she, in sylvan arts adept,
With scraps of fern drybrown from where they slept,
And moss from underneath thick boughs, in spite
Of damp, preparing her quick fire to light:
But with grave brow half-puzzled how to glean
A savoury meal from viands well-nigh spent:
And he, in prospect of the brightening weather,
Intent, but leisurely, with loitering mien,
On ferreting with purple-glossed green feather—
The wild-duck's, moistened with its searching oil—
Into the fastenings of his rifle's lock,
The shining intricacies rust would spoil;
Still pausing in his task, with banter fond

Her over-anxious care for him to mock,
To which, no whit disturbed, she would respond
Her fixed conviction what to him was due:
Or, if a longer silence intervened
Wondering what strange wild tameness towards him drew
The large grey-coated robin—kinsman true
Of England's delicate highbred bird of home,—
So fine-limbed, full of spirit!—how 'twould come
After a little startled flight or two
And perch upon the very gun he cleaned.—
'Twas then, Te Manu—who, sent off to scout,
A cloak of perfect thatch about him thrown,
Had fetched a wary compass wide about
To a far village off their route—prepared
With preconcerted tale—was seen alone
Returning from the journey safely dared,
O'er the dim plain—a shadow: till as near
He drew, the triumph on his face was clear.
Laden he came—though nought for loads he cared
When self-imposed by fancy for good cheer;
Cray-fish; plump pigeons in their fat preserved,
Neat-packed in pottles of dark wood, adorned
With carvings arabesque so quaintly curved;
Store of that tiny fish like whitebait, dried
In sunshine on hot stones; with scraps beside
Of native dainties nowise to be scorned.

II.

And when his shoulders from the pack were freed,
With joyous face he told them news indeed:

How he had met a traveller newly come
From Rotorua, and from him had learnt the sum
Of all that there had happened; how at first
When missing Amohia's clothes were found
Upon the shore, all had believed her drowned:
Then what a wailing had ensued—a burst
Of genuine grief—no counterfeiting show;
What gashing of the breast with shells, and flow
Of blood had marked the matrons' gory woe;
How Tangimoana had torn his hair
And curst his gods in frenzy of despair,
And raved against the Priest whose scheming greed
His own too ready confidence had wronged,
And driven his darling to the desperate deed;
(From Miroa was that certain fact derived);
Then what a coolness rose between the two.
And how when Ranolf's absence so prolonged,
Begun that very day, had roused more true
Suspicions, fresh inquiry set on foot
Led to the knowledge that the pair had been
By accident upon their journey seen.
And then the Priest so hotly urged pursuit
His obvious spite provoked a new dispute;
For Tangi's heart such great revulsion swelled
Of rapture that his dearest Child survived,
It found no room for thoughts of hate and rage,
And all the vengeful Priest's advice repelled
Almost with scorn; whereat the other turned
Livid with sulky wrath that inly burned,
And no amends of Tangi's could assuage;
At which all wondered; (here in Amo's breast
An undivulged remembrance more than guessed
The jealous fury that his heart possessed:)

And how the Priest soon from the Island went,
None knew when, whither, or with what intent—
Went mutely maddening with his fancied wrong
Though muttering vengeance and return erelong;
At which in hardy confidence so strong
Stout Tangi only laughed; and longed to see
His hoary age's pride again, and press
Her brow against his own in fond caress;
Yearned for her home—companioned should she be
By husband, fair or tawny—what cared he!—

III.

“But what of Miroa?” Amo asked—“her friend?”—
Ah! there too he had tidings somewhat strange,
He answered, with a shrewd and prying glance
Eyeing the beauteous questioner askance:
“O'er Miroa there had come a curious change
Since Amo left, which none could comprehend
At first; for she—that merry maid—had grown
Sad, absent, sullen-seeming; given up all
Her favourite haunts and friends to muse alone;
Thrown all the sports and frolic games aside
Of which she was the leader, life, and pride;
The lively matches with the dangling ball
Struck at each other by the seated band;
The hunted pebble passed from hand to hand;
‘Káhu’ the ‘hawk’ of rushes she could weave
And coax with scarce-seen string to soar so high
That all the children said it must deceive
The living hawks they saw beside it fly;
The háka-dances where she shone supreme,
For gayer postures who could shape or dream?

With half her archness give each new grimace
Or shake the quivering hands with saucier grace?
The skipping-rope she never had to hold,
For who could ever trip her nimble feet?
Maui, the string she could dispart and fold
With dextrous fingers into forms complete
Of all things 'twas your fancy to behold—
Canoes, men, houses, wonders new and old—
Great Mother Night producing all her train
Of Gods—or cutting with swift snap in twain
Even Maui's self—inventor of the game,
For daring to invade that darksome dame:
All these poor Miroa had discarded now
And moped and slunk about with moody brow.

IV.

“Well, all believed it was for Amo's loss
The shadow lay upon the damsel's heart;
Till recently they saw her one fine day
Alert and brisk, preparing for a start,
It seemed, to visit some one far away:
For she was with a studied neatness drest,
Her curling locks smoothed to their brightest gloss—
And striving spite of grief to look her best;
A light food-kit was o'er her shoulders slung:—
When questioned, she declared she meant to make
Her way to Roto Aira's distant Lake,
Where welcome she could always find among
Near relatives that loved her; and you know
Where'er she pleased the Maid could always go—
For who would check her movements—interfere
With one that Amohia held so dear?

But she by accident was overheard
That morning when she thought none near her stirred,
Plaintively crooning o'er an artless song
(While to and fro her form impatient swayed),
That told what secret on her spirit weighed;
The more, that from her bosom she was seen
To draw some finery—woven flowers or braid—
That there it seemed she must have cherished long,
And press them to her brow with passionate mien
And many tears—redoubled as she gazed
Awhile upon these tokens of desire
How vain! then flung them on her matin fire:
But when they quickly shrivelled up and blazed,
Gone like her dream for ever! she arose
Passing her slender hands with gesture swift
Across her brows and sweeping back the drift
Of streaming tresses, as she waved her head
And tossed her arms out wearily once—like those
Who brush aside a troublous dream:—so she
Seemed in that act to shake herself quite free
From that entangling coil of memory.
Then started on her journey as I said.
But these proceedings and the song combined,
And most that wreath—the withered flowery string,
Red feathers from the parrot's under-wing,
And scarlet band—that shining foreign thing—
Told them 'twas for the Stranger that she pined.”

Scarce had the word been uttered, ere with eyes
That flashed a sudden fire, fair Amo threw
Her arm round Ranolf as if danger near
Were threatening to despoil her of her prize,
Her heart's whole treasure; then withdrew it too

As swiftly—blushing at her foolish fear,
And asked, her bright confusion to disguise,
More than from any wish the lay to hear,
What song it was made Miroa's love so clear?—
“‘E tangi—e—te ihu’—what comes next
I'm sure I quite forget, although I heard:
At waiatas I always was a dunce.
'Twas all about a girl or some one—vexed
At scandal—full of wants and whims absurd.”

V.

But Amo recognized the words at once,
And knew the song of course; and at request
Of Ranolf, with an accent that expressed
Compassion mixed with somewhat of disdain,
Recited in sweet tones the childish strain,
Whose meaning this loose version may explain:

1

“Alas, and well-a-day! they are talking of me still:
By the tingling of my nostril, I fear they are talking ill;
Poor hapless I—poor little I—so many mouths to fill—
And all for this strange feeling, O this sad sweet pain!

2

O senseless heart—O simple! to yearn so and to pine
For one so far above me, confest o'er all to shine—
For one a hundred dote upon, who never can be mine!
O 'tis a foolish feeling—all this fond sweet pain!

3

When I was quite a child—not so many moons ago—
A happy little maiden—O then it was not so;
Like a sunny-dancing wavelet then I sparkled to and fro;
And I never had this feeling, O this sad sweet pain!

4

I think it must be owing to the idle life I lead
In the dreamy house for ever that this new bosom-weed
Has sprouted up and spread its shoots till it troubles me indeed
With a restless weary feeling—such a sad sweet pain!

5

So in this pleasant islet, O no longer will I stay—
And the shadowy summer-dwelling, I will leave this very day;
On Arapá I'll launch my skiff and soon be borne away
From all that feeds this feeling, O this fond sweet pain!

6

I'll go and see dear Rima—she'll welcome me I know,
And a flaxen cloak—her gayest—o'er my weary shoulders throw,
With purfle red and points so free—O quite a lovely show—
To charm away this feeling—O this sad sweet pain!

7

Two feathers I will borrow, and so gracefully I'll wear,
Two feathers soft and snowy for my long black lustrous hair;
Of the Albatross's down they'll be—O how charming they'll look there—
All to chase away this feeling—O this fond sweet pain!

8

Then the lads will flock around me with flattering talk all day—
And with anxious little pinches sly hints of love convey;
And I shall blush with happy pride to hear them . . . I daresay . . .
And quite forget this feeling, O this sad sweet pain!”

VI.

So with much grief for Miroa's fond distress,
The pair recalled full many a sign that might
Have helped them read her simple heart aright,
Had both not been too much pre-occupied
With fancies of their own at hers to guess:
And they remembered with what eyes—how wide—
Of eager wondering gladness she had seemed
To feed and fasten on all Ranolf's ways
And looks and movements, when, those two first days,
They met at Rotorua; how they beamed
When with such giggling blushes of delight
She bent her head as carelessly he tied
The ribbon round it he declared less fair
And tasteful than the wreath already there,
Of crimson feathers and the snowy rays
Of clematis—while all might see she deemed
The present of less value than the praise.

And then it flashed on Amo's mind, as sped
Her memory back, with such a cue supplied,
How artfully and oft the Maid would guide
Their talk the way that to the Stranger led;

And when that theme was reached, how glibly ran
Her tongue, unceasing when it once began
In Ranolf's favour mostly, or would raise
Some point against him—find some fault—aver
Some blemish—that she, Amo, might demur
More warmly—more unguardedly be brought
To sound his dear deserts for whom she fought,
And his light-jesting enemy upbraid:
All which the unsuspecting Amo thought
She did to humour, not herself but her—
The foolish Mistress, not the foolish Maid;
(With an arch glance at Ranolf this was said:)

And then she recollected once, when turning
Suddenly, with what surprise she caught
Poor Miroa's bloodshot eyes fixed on her, burning
With envy, almost hate; with what swift check
She changed that look to one of passionate yearning,
And wildly flung her arms round Amo's neck
And burst into a flood of tears, and cried:
“My good, good Mistress—O how good and kind
And always dear—O do not mark or mind
The passion of your worthless slave—too bad
For such a mistress—O too false and mad!
Kill, kill me if you will—you should—you may—
But tear this blackness from my breast away!”—
“And then she lavished on me little acts
Of kindness and attention all that day.
And I, still blind to these so patent facts,
Thought 'twas the memory of her home afar
And friends, from whom long years ago in war
She had been torn—a captive, that oppressed
Her fancy then, with fond regrets distressed;

Although I rather wondered she was moved
By that so deeply—scarcely could ascribe
Such passion to such cause; for she had known
Nothing but kindness, since, so terrified
That day she came she shuffled to my side,
And I scarce older, set her numbed limbs free
From bonds, and said she should belong to me.
But since that day so merry had she grown—
She, sprung too from a chief of good degree—
That all our people looked upon and loved
The Child as a true daughter of the tribe,
I always as a sister of my own.”

VII.

Well, so they grieved for Miroa: yet no less
Perhaps, and shall we blame her if 'twere so?
This very feeling for poor Miroa's woe,
Though Amo's love for her was true indeed,
In her unconscious heart could not but breed
A secret feeling she would not confess
Of greater joy in her own happiness.
And cheering up, she said—“You may depend
On this—from what Te Manu says, our friend
Has overcome and shaken off her pain;
That song would tell it—but still more the power
To burn the keepsake—what was it? the flower
Or ribbon you bestowed in luckless hour.
And she has lovers, O in plenty—she!
And there was one on whom she always smiled,
I thought; a lad who lives or I mistake,
A fine good lad, beside that very Lake
And near the friends shemust have gone to see;

She will be happy soon—dear merry Child!
Though how she could get o'er such love”—the rest
Was hidden with her face on Ranolf's breast.

VIII.

Then, as they marked the sky still growing bright
The distant mountains visible once more,
Black-blue, with smothering fleeces flattened o'er
Their ridges—sprawling harpies snowy white
With claws that clutched their summits hid from sight
Or like a sudden foam-sea, o'er each brow
Arrested in its branching overflow;
The pair made ready for a happier start,
Free to obey each prompting of the heart,
Go where they list—all apprehension flown—
And give themselves to Love and Joy alone.

Canto the Third. Love and Nature luxuriant.

1. The happy Lover. 2. Love's young dream. 3. A Latter-day Eden. 4. A suitable home for the fascinating dread Deity. 5. Rest in the Forest. The beautiful Palm. 6. Expressions of trees—suggest more than the ‘pathetic fallacy.’ 7. Forest luxuriance.

I.

A king—a God—a little Child
Your happy Lover is; a Saint
With all the Eternal Powers at one—
Serene—confiding—reconciled:
He thinks no ill—believes in none;
There is for him no sin, no taint,
No room for doubt, disgust, complaint,
Misgiving or despondence faint:
Life's mystery flies, her secret won,
Like morning frost before the sun;
How should its cobweb ties arrest
The triumph of his bounding breast!
How should he feel, with actual heaven
In measureless fruition given,
The mounting spirit's mortal load?
Feel, steeped in empyrean day
And rapture without stint bestowed,
The Mind too big for its abode,
The Soul's discomfort in its clay?

Why look to some seraphic sphere
For light, for love, so lavish here?
In this our gorgeous Paradise
Why bend to grief—why stoop to vice?
Ah why distrest and sorrow-prest—
Why not be right and brave and blest?
How easy, in a world so bright
To be, to live, blest, brave and right!—
He breathes Elysium—walks on wings;
His own unbounded bliss he flings
O'er all deformed, unhappy things:
Transfigured are they—glorified;
Or vanish and cannot abide
The flood of splendour, the full tide
Of joy that from his heart so wide
Wells over all the world beside.
O Melodist unequalled—Pride
Of Nature's self-taught songsters he!
Inspired—unconscious—mute too soon—
Who sets and sings his lyric Life-song free
To glad Creation's high triumphant tune!

II.

So for herself and most for her beloved
All anxious cares and fears removed,
So upon Amohia now unclouded beams—
In rounded fulness of possession streams
Once more the dream of dreams—
The dear divine delirium! say
Once to all by fate allowed;
Though from its shy crescent small,
That finest silver eyelash, fall

Only its earliest rising ray;
Clothing them ever with a luminous cloud
Wherein they may a sweet while stray,
In the thronging whisper-play
Of Angel-wings, on life's highway;
Monomaniacs, in the charge
Of Beauty,—blissfully at large
'Mid the sadly saner crowd.

III.

—But we pause—we pale before it,
Fairest reader—that soft splendour!
And your pardon we implore it,
If in sight of scene so tender
Heart and voice we haply harden,
And with faltering step pass o'er it,
That sequestered Eden-garden;
Painting in evasive fashion
Two young lovers, wildly loving,
Through a lovely region roving,
Free as Nature—free as birds are,
Free as infants' thoughts and words are!
Ah! too rich for our rude treating,
Too exalted for our story
That intense absorbing passion—
That fine fever of young Love;
Which though cheating, swiftly fleeting,
Oft it seem to mock and flout us,
Comes so innocent, undesigning,
Comes into our darkness shining,
Comes and wraps the mystic glory
Of the golden Heavens about us!

And though pining or declining,
Buried—pent here—without vent here—
Lone—a stranger, wild, erratic;
Soon returning to the burning
Blisses of its home above—
Leaves a bud elsewhere to blossom,
Leaves a light in every bosom;—
Just revealing ere off-stealing,
One brief glimpse of soul-enjoyment,
To endure a memory sure—
Pure—a secret life-refiner
And great lure to realms diviner,
Where abandonment ecstatic
To the infinite of feeling—
Loftier love than aught existent,
Ever by indulgence growing
Deeper, fonder, and more glowing—
Tide at flooding still new flowing,
Flower fresh-budding while full-blowing—
Is consistent—is persistent,
Is our normal, true employment!

IV.

But say, in any Age of Gold
Or song-lit classic clime of old,
Where the amorous azure zephyr-fanned
Caressing kissed with murmur bland
Some finely-pebbled Paphian strand;
Where Cyprian seawinds whispering made
Love-plaint in hot Idalian glade
And marble-templed mulberry-shade;
Or where with wanton freaks and frets

Sang rough Cythera's sparkling jets
And silvery-laughing rivulets;
Or out of sight and sunshine slipped,
And lone in limestone cave and crypt,
Slow heavy tears in silence dripped;—
Were ever loveliest scenes in sooth
So typically fit to be
A birthplace and a home for thee,
Impassioned Love! as these that see
Our sylvan Maid, our sailor Youth
Love-linked go loitering where they list,
Love-led through Love's own mighty Mist?

A wondrous realm indeed beguiled
The pair amidst its charms to roam.
O'er scenes more fair, serenely wild,
Not often summer's glory smiled;
When flecks of cloud, transparent, bright,
No alabaster half so white,
Hung lightly in a luminous dome
Of sapphire, seemed to float and sleep
Far in the front of its blue steep;
And almost awful, none the less
For its liquescent loveliness,
Behind them sunk, just o'er the hill,
The deep Abyss profound and still,
The so immediate Infinite!
That yet emerged the same, it seemed,
In hue divine and melting balm,
In many a Lake whose crystal calm
Uncrisped, unwrinkled, scarcely gleamed;

Where Sky above and Lake below
Would like one sphere of azure show,
Save for the circling belt alone,
The softly-painted purple zone
Of mountains—bathed where nearer seen
In sunny tints of sober green
With velvet dark of woods between,
All glossy glooms and shifting sheen;
While here and there, some peak of snow
Would o'er their tenderer violet lean.

And yet within this region, fair
With wealth of waving woods—these glades
And glens and lustre-smitten shades,
Where trees of tropic beauty rare
With graceful spread and ample swell
Uprose; and that strange asphodel
On tufts of stiff green bayonet-blades,
Great bunches of white bloom upbore,
Like blocks of seawashed madrepore,
That steeped the noon in fragrance wide,
Till by the exceeding sweet opprest
The stately tree-fern leaned aside
For languor, with its starry crown
Of radiating fretted fans,
And proudly-springing beauteous crest
Of shoots all brown with glistening down,
Curved like the lyre-bird's tail half-spread,
Or necks opposed of wrangling swans,
Red bill to bill—black breast to breast;—

Aye! in this realm of seeming rest,
What sights you met and sounds of dread!
Calcareous caldrons, deep and large
With geysers hissing to their marge;
Sulphureous fumes that spout and blow;
Columns and cones of boiling snow;
And sable lazy-bubbling pools
Of sputtering mud that never cools;
With jets of steam through narrow vents
Uproaring, maddening to the sky,
Like cannon-mouths that shoot on high
In unremitting loud discharge
Their inexhaustible contents:
While oft beneath the trembling ground
Rumbles a drear persistent sound
Like ponderous engines infinite, working
At some tremendous task below!—

Such are the signs and symptoms—lurking
Or launching forth in dread display—
Of hidden fires, internal strife,
Amid that leafy, lush array
Of rank luxuriant verdurous life:
Glad haunts above where blissful love
Might revel, rove, enraptured dwell;
But through them pierce such tokens fierce
Of rage beneath and frenzies fell;
As if, to quench and stifle it,
Green Paradise were flung o'er Hell—
Flung fresh with all her bowers close-knit,
Her dewy vales and dimpled streams;
Yet could not so its fury quell
But that the old red realm accurst

Would still recalcitrate, rebel,
Still struggle upward and outburst
In scalding fumes, sulphureous steams.
It struck you as you paused to trace
The sunny scenery's strange extremes,
As if in some divinest face,
All heavenly smiles, angelic grace,
Your eye at times discerned, despite
Sweet looks with innocence elate,
Some wan wild spasm of blank affright
Or demon-scowl of pent-up hate;
Or some convulsive writhe confest,
For all that bloom of beauty bright,
An anguish not to be represt!
You look,—a moment bask in, bless,
Its laughing light of happiness;
But look again—what startling throes
And fiery pangs of fierce distress
The lovely lineaments disclose;—
How o'er the fascinating features flit
The genuine passions of the nether pit!—

But whatsoe'er of dark and dread
May be in Love's wild bosom bred,
Now on his ardent votaries shone
His bright and beauteous moods alone.

V.

Amo and Ranolf slowly journeying home,
Had to a pleasant place for camping come
Inside a glorious forest; and although
The atmosphere was still aglow

With heat—the sun still shining high,
Resolved that day they would no further go:
Why should they haste—what seek or fly?
Each rocky niche or woody nook
Of most retired romantic look,
There they could make their home, their rest,
And choose next day as fair a nest:—
'Twas such a joy to journey so,
How could their journey be too slow!
So long as not compelled to sever,
They cared not should it last for ever.

The youth, with hands beneath his head,
Against a great titóki's base,
Where less compact and tangled spread
The underbrush a little space,
Lay watching, now the forest scene,
Now Amo, as with accents gay
And lovely looks and lively mien
Directions to the lad she gave
How best and where the stones to lay
When heated well, and neatly pave
The little hollow cleared away
To make his oven in, and cook—
In leaves close-folded, lightly sprinkled
With water from the fretting brook
O'er rocky bed that near them tinkled—
The savoury palm-tree's pithy heart,
By Ranolf just cut down—but not,—
(Though many grew about the spot)
Without—be sure—a little smart—

Some slight compunction, for a meal
To strike with his destructive steel,
A thing so fair, a woodland treasure
You could not look at without pleasure!
A slim smooth pillar, ribbed and round,
With drooping crimson chaplet crowned;
O'er that,—erect, symmetric, chaste,
A green Greek vase of perfect taste,
With narrow neck and swelling side,
Smooth-shining, sinuous; whence in pride
Of beauty issued, spreading wide,
A fan-like tuft of feathers free—
All in artistic harmony!

Nor this alone employed the lad;
Intent upon a forest feast,
A more attractive task he had—
To raise and fix his three forked sticks,
The little iron pot to sling
He would on that excursion bring:
Its use of all the white man's ways
Had won his most decided praise;
In Ranolf's service he at least
Had learnt what pleasant things were made
With its inestimable aid;
And now with ducks and pigeons shot
By Ranolf, he designed a stew,
Should all his former stews outdo,
Since he had shared a traveller's lot.

VI.

But watching thus the wood, or these,
As Ranolf lay, his facile eye

Ran o'er the shapes of plants and trees
Exuberant round him, known or new.
And while once more, as oft before,
He marked with pleasure deep and true,
What varied charms in form and hue
Dear Nature's forest-children wore,
It so did chance his curious glance
Fell on a slender shrub hard by,
All trace-work of transparent gold,
Or gold and emerald blended,—neither,
Yet far more beautiful than either!
Against a ground of shadow black
And soft as velvet at its back,—
So delicately pencilled in green splendour,
Stem branch and twig and leaflet tender
So saturate with sunshine—such a flood
Of light,—the exquisite creation stood!—

Then out at once at that sweet sight,
Outbroke in words his pure delight
And admiration uncontrolled:

“O the ineffable loveliness
Of the green works of—Chance!!—how strange
Their perfect power to mock each one some dress
Our many-masquing Spirits wear;
Mute, yet expert, like Music, to express
In forms as it in sounds what mood soe'er
The Soul may take through feeling's varied range!
Look at that star-crowned beauty how she stoops,
With what meek pride her plumy crest is bent!

See that fair wanton's figure forward leant
With open arms and every spreading spray
In trustful, loving, frank abandonment;
Mark that small spire, stiff—upright—almost pert,
School-girl in class—or sentry all alert!
What shrinking tenderness does one display,
Another languidly despondent droops:
Here, some advanced in bold defiance stand,
While others crouch in shy reserve behind;
There innocent grace, or full contentment bland,
Or swelling pomp their fit exponents find:
And see! how that dismantled forest-king
Does his contorted silver branches fling,
All bare to heaven, in wild despair,
Or writhing agony of speechless prayer!—
Surely that first formative Spirit unknown
That to these innocent woodland things supplied
Shapes with our inmost feelings so allied,
By such foreshadowing evolution showed
Its prescience of those feelings ere they rose;
Nay, to the Finite stooping,—in a mode
So beautiful and subtle and serene,
Haply designed, if dimly, to disclose,
To every sentiment within us sown
Some mystical relation of its own
Not all unsympathetic though unseen!

VII.

“But O their rich luxuriance! What a load
That sturdy giant lifts in air!
His mighty arms are strong and broad,
But all with alien growths are furred,

A shaggy hide of creepers rare;
Their forks are all blocked up and blurred
With tufts of clogging parasites
That crowd till not a spot left bare
Might offer footing for a bird!—
And such her boundless vigour, see,
Above, below, and everywhere,
Exulting Nature so delights,
So riots in profusion, she
Twice over does her work for glee!
A tangled intricacy first she weaves,
Under and upper growth of bush and tree
In rampant wrestle for ascendancy;
Then round it all a richer overflow
Of reckless vegetation flings,
That here, close-moulding on the shrubs below
A matted coat of delicate leaves,
Mantles the muffled life whereon it clings
Into a solid mass of greenery;
There, mounting to the tree-tops, down again
Comes wildly wantoning in a perfect rain
Of trailers—self-encircling living strings
Unravellable! see how all about
The hundred-stranded creeper-cordage swings!
And when the breeze, so loud without,
Now tamed and awe-struck, gliding in, has found
Amid the stately trees a stealthy way—
How gently to-and-fro just o'er the ground
The low-depending woody ringlets sway,
Like panting creatures on the watch for play!”

Canto the Fourth. Trees and the Tree-God.

1. Ranolf, on a hint from Amo, rhapsodises on beautiful trees and plants. 2. Amo affects jealousy; which tree shall she be? 3. Evening. 4. A kiss.

I.

What kindly Genius couching Poets' eyes—
For Custom's cataracts dim the keenest sight—
Gives them the Infant's crystal power to prize
The simplest beauty that before them lies,
Transparent to its wonder and delight?—

“Why, Rano,” with her cheerful smile
Said Amo, at her wifely tasks, the while
He, as we told, in such enthusiast-style
Revelled in all the leafy life,
All the green revel round them rife:
“If you were Tanë's self indeed,
The Atua and the Father of the Trees,
You could not of their ways take greater heed!”

The fancy seemed his mood to please:
“Hurrah!” he cried, and following her lead
Went on, as with mock-solemn triumph fired,
Half to himself, and half to her, as whim

To speech or thought unspoken guided him,
To dally with the notion she inspired:

1.

“I am Tanë—the Tree-God!
Mine are forests not a few—
Forests, and I love them greatly,
Moss-encrusted, ancient, stately;
Lusty, lightly-clad, and new.
Mottled lights and chequered changes,
Mid all these my roam and range is;
Shadowy aisle and avenue;
Creeper-girdled column too:
In the mystic mid-day night
Many-mullioned openings bright;
Solemn tracery far aloof
Letting trefoiled radiance through!
Many a splintered sun-shaft leaning
Staff-like straight against the roof
Of black alcoves overspread—
Arched with foliage intervening
Layer on layer in verdurous heaps,
'Twixt that blackness and the sun;
With a tiny gap, but one,
Light-admitting; brilliance-proof,
Day-defying, all unriven
Elsewhere—all beside offscreening
Of the grand wide glow of Heaven!
Or, where thinner the green woof
Veils the vault of outer blue,
Many a branch that upward creeps,
Wandering darkly overhead
Under luminous leafy deeps,

Which an emerald splendour steeps
From the noon that o'er them sleeps!—
O I tend them, love, defend them,
And all kindly influence lend them;
For my worship all are suited,
If, but, in the firm earth rooted,
By the living air recruited,
They, ere it grow withered, dull,
Their green mantle beautiful,
Still repair, revive, renew.”

(Then to himself, more musingly:)

“Many creeds, and sects and churches,—hopeful each its own way going;
Bigots, sceptics, saints and sinners—precious to the Power all-knowing,
So they keep absorbing ever more of Truth, the ever-growing.”
(This, by the way, because he could not smother
That inveterate tendency
To find in all things symbols of each other.)

2.

“I am Tanë—the Tree-God!
My sons are a million;
In every region,
Their name it is legion;
And they build a pavilion
My glory to hold.
Which shall my favourites be?
Which are most pleasing to me,

Of their shapes and their qualities manifold?—
The gigantic parasite-myrtle
That over its victims piles up
Great domes of pure vermilion
Filling the black defiles up:
The King-Pine that grandly towers:—
The fuchsia-tree with its flowers,
Poor rustics that timidly ape
Their sisters of daintier shape
With their delicate bells downhung,
And their waxen filaments flung
So jauntily out in the air,
Like girls in short crimson kirtle
That spins in the wind as they whirl
A-tiptoe one pointed foot,
And one horizontal outshoot:—
The clematis-garlands that curl
And their graceful wreaths unfurl
From many a monstrous withe;
Snowy-starred serpents and lithe
That in sable contortions writhe,
Till Fancy could almost declare
That great Ophiucus, down-hurled
From his throne in the skyey star-world,
Had been caught with his glittering gems
'Mid those giant entangling stems
Which he deemed but a dwarfish copse,
So was struggling and surging in vain
To rear his vast coils o'er their tops
And his gleaming lair regain!—

Then the limber-limbed tree that will shower its
Corollas—a saffrony sleet,
Till Taupo's soft sappharine face is
Illumined for wonderful spaces
With a matting of floating flowerets—
Drift-bloom and a watersward meet
For a watersprite's fairy feet;
'Tis the kowhai, that spendthrift so golden:
But its kinsman to Nature beholden
For raiment its beauty to fold in
Deep-dyed as of trogon or lory,
How with parrot-bill fringes 'tis burning,
One blood-red mound of glory!
Then the pallid eurybia turning
The vernal hill-slopes hoary
With its feathers so faintly sweet
And its under-leaves white as a sheet;—
All of them, all—both the lofty and lowly,
Equally love I and wholly;
So that each take form and feature
After its genuine law and nature
Its true and peculiar plan;
So that each, with live sap flowing,
Keep on growing, upward growing,
As high from the earth as it can!

“Many creatures—varied features—dark and bright still onward moving;
Tyrants—tumblers—boors and beauties, kings and clowns alike approving,
To them all the Gods are gracious—to them all the Gods are loving.

3.

“I am Tanë the Tree-God.
What will you bring to me?
Fruits of all kinds will I take
So ripe, true fruits they be!
Melting pulp—juicy flake—
Sweet kernel or bitter—
None are better—none fitter—
All are grateful to me.
But your shell with no lining
Though splendidly shining;
But your husk with a varnish
That nought seems to tarnish;
If any of these I espy,
Empty and hard and dry,
That serve but for clamour and clatter
Or the genuine fruit to belie;
These cheats will I shiver and shatter
And their fragments scornfully scatter,
O none of them bring to me!

“Pains and passions—deeds and duties—virtues, vices—gifts and graces—
Have not all, their value, uses—in their various fitting places—
So they be not false pretences, mocking masks for natural faces?—

“There, my sweet one, that is what,
Were I Tanë (which, thank God, I'm not,
Seeing mine's a happier lot)

That is about what I should say,
Had I my own, my wondrous way.”

II.

And Amo coming to his side amused,
Her smiling eyes with tender love suffused,
“How fond, O Rano mine,” said she,
“Of these dumb things you seem to be;
I shall be jealous soon, I think,
And wish myself a Tree!”

“A tree, my Amo! but I wonder which?
O which so fair that we might link
Such loveliness in fancy with its form?
Which should be haven for a heart so warm,
So sweet a Spirit's dwelling-place?
The Rata-myrtle for its bloom so rich—
Or Tree-fern for its perfect grace?
Its slender stem I would embrace
How fondly!—nay, but that would never do—
That limbless tree-fern never should be you
With nothing but a stem and plumy crest!
Ah no! the glorious Rata-tree were best,
With blooming arms that spread around—above;
That should be you, my sole delight,
My darling bliss! that so I might
Embosomed in embowering beauty rest,
And nestle in the branches of my love!”

“Nay—but I would not be,” said Amo—“I,
That Rata—if the change I had to try;
Rather the snowy Clematis, to twine

About the tree I loved; or rather yet
That creeper Fern, with little roots so fine
Along its running cords, it seems to get
For its gay leaves with golden spots beset,
Its dearest nurture from the bark whereto
It clings so close; as if its life it drew,
Drew all its loving life from that alone—
As I from thee, Ranoro, all my own!”

She paused a tender moment—then resumed:

“Nay, not the Rata! howsoe'er it bloomed,
Paling the crimson sunset; for you know,
Its twining arms and shoots together grow
Around the trunk it clasps, conjoining slow
Till they become consolidate, and show
An ever-thickening sheath that kills at last
The helpless tree round which it clings so fast.
Rather, O how much rather than destroy
The thing I loved, the source of all my joy,
Would I, my Rano, share the piteous fate
The Rata's poor companion must await—
Were you the clasper, I the tree that died,
That you might flourish in full strength and pride!”

“Nay—nay—my Amo! were't to be my doom
To clasp you till you perished in your bloom,
Neither to misery should be left behind—
Together would we be to death consigned—
In death, as all through life, in love entwined.
But now, my lovely Clematis, be gay!—
Though never shall I see that Rata bright,
In murderous fondness, fastening round its prey

The serpent-folds that hug the friend they slay,
Without a sigh for the poor victim's plight;
Without a wish to cut and cleave away
The monster throttling what has been his stay;
Without some wonder why the Power divine
Includes such pictures in his world's design,
And even in lovely vegetable life
Leaves startling models of unnatural strife.”

III.

Thus they two in their dream. But Evening now
Steals, like a serious thought o'er joyous face,
Its cooling veil o'er the warm Earth to throw.
The hawk no longer soars in pride of place,
Stiff-wheeling with bent head in circles slow;
The teal and wild-duck leave the floating weed
And open pool, for sheltering rush and reed;
And home with outstretched necks the cormorants fly
In strings—each train dark-lettering the sky,
Now V exact, now lengthening into Y—
As arrow-like direct their course they steer
To haunts afar, unseen, but somewhere near
Those mountain-summits carpeted and black
With forests dense without a break or track,
Whence smooth and ferny spurs in golden dun
Of solemn sunlight undulating run
Down to dim bases lost in shadows blue
That blot the intervening gullies too—
Encroaching darkness creeping upward still
O'er chequered black-and-gold of dell and hill.

IV.

“How pleasant is the life those birds must lead—
About the sea all day to sport and feed,
Where'er they will, with little heed;
And flee away at night with aim so sure
Striking across the sky, so eager each
His inaccessible far roost to reach—
So secret, solitary and secure
In solitude. And is not ours like theirs—
As free, as lonely sweet, as void of cares!”
Said Ranolf, as beside him closer drew
Fair Amo: “Yes, my wildwood dove,
What have we else to do but live and love!”
And she, her native tongue, no doubt, too weak,
The fond delight that filled her heart to speak,
Replied in one more rich, she felt, though new,
That foreign language of a fervid kiss;
Shaping her smiling lips as if they might
Unlearnedly perform the mystic rite,
Some feature of its due observance miss.
“But see,” she hints, “Te Manu comes to say
The kúkupas are done he takes such pride
In cooking.”—As she spoke the youngster gay
Came running up and grinning cried:
Ranoro, come! come, Amo, quickly—do!
Ka rá-we! 'tis a glorious stew!”

Canto the Fifth. The Fountain-Terraces.

1. An illusion. 2. The great Terraces. 3. Silica-flowers. 4. The Moon. Beauty a true Evangelist. 5. Mahána—the warm Lake. Waterfowl. 6. The singing Islet.

I.

“How beautiful! how wonderful! how strange!”—

Such words, less thought than mere emotion, well
Might Ranolf with abated breath, in tone
That wonder-stricken to a whisper fell,
For Amo's looks of triumph now exchange:
So fair a vision charmed our loiterers lone,
As at the closing of a sultry day,
In search of some good camping-ground
They paddled up Mahána's Lake,
Where they a small canoe had found
(Which Amo settled they might take)
With little care half-hid in sedge
Flax-fastened to the water's edge—
Its owners clearly far away.

From the low sky-line of the hilly range
Before them, sweeping down its dark-green face
Into the lake that slumbered at its base,
A mighty Cataract—so it seemed—
Over a hundred steps of marble streamed
And gushed, or fell in dripping overflow;
Flat steps, in flights half-circled—row o'er row,
Irregularly mingling side by side;
They and the torrent-curtain wide,
All rosy-hued, it seemed, with sunset's glow.—

But what is this!—no roar, no sound,
Disturbs that torrent's hush profound!
The wanderers near and nearer come—
Still is the mighty Cataract dumb!
A thousand fairy lights may shimmer
With tender sheen, with glossy glimmer,
O'er curve advanced and salient edge
Of many a luminous water-ledge;
A thousand slanting shadows pale
May fling their thin transparent veil
O'er deep recess and shallow dent
In many a watery stair's descent:
Yet, mellow-bright, or mildly dim,
Both lights and shades—both dent and rim—
Each wavy streak—each warm snow-tress—
Stand rigid, mute and motionless!
No faintest murmur—not a sound—
Relieves that Cataract's hush profound;
No tiniest bubble, not a flake
Of floating foam is seen to break
The smoothness where it meets the Lake:

Along that shining surface move
No ripples; not the slightest swell
Rolls o'er the mirror darkly green,
Where, every feature limned so well—
Pale, silent, and serene as death—
The Cataract's image hangs beneath
The Cataract—but not more serene,
More phantom-silent than is seen
The white rose-hued reality above.

II.

They paddle past—for on the right
Another Cataract comes in sight;
Another broader, grander flight
Of steps—all stainless, snowy-bright!
They land—their curious way they track
Near thickets made by contrast black;
And then that wonder seems to be
A Cataract carved in Parian stone,
Or any purer substance known—
Agate or milk-chalcedony!
Its showering snow-cascades appear
Long ranges bright of stalactite,
And sparry frets and fringes white,
Thick-falling, plenteous, tier o'er tier;
Its crowding stairs, in bold ascent
Piled up that silvery-glimmering height,
Are layers, they know,—accretions slow
Of hard silicious sediment.
For as they gain a rugged road,
And cautious climb the solid rime,
Each step becomes a terrace broad—

Each terrace a wide basin brimmed
With water, brilliant yet in hue
The tenderest delicate harebell-blue
Deepening to violet!

Slowly climb
The twain, and turn from time to time
To mark the hundred baths in view—
Crystalline azure, snowy-rimmed—
The marge of every beauteous pond
Curve after curve—each lower beyond
The higher—outsweeping white and wide,
Like snowy lines of foam that glide
O'er level sea-sands lightly skimmed
By thin sheets of the glistening tide.

They climb those milk-white flats incrusted
And netted o'er with wavy ropes
Of wrinkled silica. At last—
Each basin's heat increasing fast—
The topmost step the pair surmount,
And lo, the cause of all! Around,
Half-circling cliffs a crater bound;
Cliffs damp with dark-green moss—their slopes
All crimson-stained with blots and streaks—
White-mottled and vermilion-rusted.
And in the midst, beneath a cloud
That ever upward rolls and reeks
And hides the sky with its dim shroud,
Look where upshoots a fuming fount—
Up through a blue and boiling pool
Perennial—a great sapphire steaming,
In that coralline crater gleaming.

Upwelling ever, amethystal,
Ebullient comes the bubbling crystal!
Still growing cooler and more cool
As down the porcelain stairway slips
The fluid flint, and slowly drips,
And hangs each basin's curling lips
With crusted fringe each year increases,
Thicker than shear-forgotten fleeces;
More close and regular than rows,
Long rows of snowy trumpet-flowers
Some day to hang in garden-bowers,
When strangers shall these wilds enclose.

III.

But see! in all that lively spread
Of blue and white and vermeil red,—
How, dark with growths of greenest gloss
Just at the edge of that first ledge,
(Calcareous string to cliff-formed bow
O'er which the hot-pool trickles slow)
A little rocky islet peeps
Into the crater-caldron's deeps.
Along the ledge they lightly cross,
And from its midway islet gaze
O'er all the scene—and every phase
The current takes as down it strays.
They note where'er, by step or stair,
By brimming bath, on hollow reef
Or hoary plain, its magic rain
Can reach a branch, a flower, a leaf—
The branching spray, leaf, blossom gay,
Are blanched and stiffened into stone!

So round about lurks tracery strewn
Of daintiest-moulded porcelain-ware,
Or coral wreaths and clusters rare,
A white flint-foliage!—rather say
Such fairy work as frost alone
Were equal to, could it o'erlay
With tender crust of crystals fair,—
Fine spikes so delicately piled—
Not wintry trees, leafstripped and bare,
But summer's vegetation, rich and wild.

IV.

But while all this they watch, lo, still and grand,
The enormous Moon!—how, like
A great gold cymbal on its edge upright,
Upon the mountain's ridge it takes its stand
So close—there balanced broad and steady,
To bathe in dreamily-magical light
What seemed a magical dream already,
Twice beautify the beautiful, and strike
Transcended sense dead-mute with admiration!—
And who could mark, with wondering soul-elation,
That revel of redundant loveliness,
Nor truths that Ranolf leapt to, half confess?

“O these charms of great Nature! who ever has seen them
In their glory as these are, nor owned that the notion
They force on the thinker, is true, not illusive—
That our senses and they, so composed as between them
To awake in the mind such delightful emotion,
Are proofs self-attested, as logic conclusive,

Of Benevolence somewhere, in what can convene them—
Adapt them to act and react on each other?
A sentiment this, that no Science can smother.
Nor condemn it as anthropomorphical folly,
Since a cause they must have, one intelligent wholly,
To hold that the Cause of these marvels must mean them
To display that Benevolence—mutely reveal it
In delight to the creature most fitted to feel it!

—Aye truly! and though by stern reasoning's parity
You maintain that in Nature, the baleful, disgusting
Should be proof in its Cause of defect of such charity—
That if Beauty be vaunted as sign of Benevolence,
Deformity equally argues Malevolence,—
Yet the first so outsplendours the last—so exceeds it—
And the last has such uses, Mankind almost needs it—
'Tis hard not to side with the hopeful and trusting!
Yes, cavil and carp, the nice balance adjusting,
Yet is Beauty in literal truth, nothing less
Than a Gospel—an embassy mute yet express
From some Power imperial, of friendliness felt
For mankind—say of Love! one that never will cease
To diffuse its serene revelations of peace;
Bright dawns and rich sunsets its eloquent books;
And the broad laugh of flowers, and the soft-chiming brook's
Secret murmurs of joy, and the rapture of birds,
Its angelical whispers—accredited words:
But holiest Woman's affectionate looks,
Most thrillingly potent to move and to melt,
Are the pages where clearest its plenary power
Of divine Inspiration for ever has dwelt!
And he who has basked but one bliss-giving hour

In their sunshine and solace, like me must avow,
With the loveliest lessons of Love, it is thou
O Beauty, bright Mystic, the spirit canst fill;
Aye, 'tis Thou, in all shapes, of celestial good-will,
Art the sweetest, most suasive Evangelist still!”—

V.

Content that night no more to see,
The wanderers push off merrily
To what that night their home shall be:
A little rugged isle (another
Beside it standing, its twin-brother
In conformation strange) that lifts
Its verdurous tufts o'er tortuous rifts
Misshapen—many a dip and rent
In rock that—ever bathed, besprent
With oozy hotspring, fervid play
Of steam that finds a viewless vent—
Is softening slow to pallid clay.
By isles—mere knots of waving grass,
By thin-spread rush and reed they pass;
And fright a thousand birds that rise
From bubbling channel, heated marsh;
And flee in flocks away, with cries
Now plaintive—wild, now hoarse and harsh;
Coot, teal and that rich gallinule
Of velvet violet plumage proud;
That, night and day, each open pool
Or warm and watery covert crowd;
And stalk and strut and peer and pry
With jerking tail and searching eye;

Or plash and paddle, duck and dive,
And through green bills quick-gargling drive
The scooped-up Lake's clear lymph. And see,
Pink-legged, snow-white or sable-pied,
Those strangers from far Ocean's side;
Bluff oyster-catcher, avocet,
And tripping beach-birds, seldom met
Elsewhere—come hither, not for food,
But on this warm delight to brood,
This tepid inland luxury.

VI.

The pair have left the light canoe
And cross the soil with cautious tread,
Whose treacherous crust they scarce can trust—
Each step, it seems, may break it through.
With springy swelling moss 'tis spread,
An emerald, warm, and soaking sod,
In places; then their way they track
Through little thickets, very black
In shade against the tumbled blocks,
The steaming, white and moonlit rocks;
But cherished there to richness rare
Of fragrant broom and ferny plume
And winding woven lycopod
Close-creeping—all luxuriant, lush,
In that pervading vapour-gush.
Then on a grassy spot the brake
Left free—just large enough to make
A couch for two, fenced all around

With aromatic leptosperm—
A soft green gapless wall—they heap
Elastic fern and broom to keep
Down to a pleasant warmth the heat
The ground gives out; where they may sleep—
Could Love desire a bower more sweet?—
Secure no noxious reptiles creep
Throughout the land—envenomed worm
Or poison-snake you dread to meet:
And lulled by that low changeless churme,
The hissing, simmering, seething sound
That sings and murmurs all the while
And ever round that mystic isle;
May sleep a blissful sleep profound,
Plunged in the calm unconscious heaven
To youth and health out-wearied given.

Canto the Sixth. A Geyser Yoked.

1. Warm baths. 2. More hotsprings and clay-pools. A pea-green tarn. 3. The rosy fountain-stairs and alabaster rock. 4. Geysers still. An emerald font. 5. Amo's notions of travelling. 6. The Roaring Geyser. Steam yoked. 7. A real Atua.

I.

Soon as the Morn from curtain-folds of grey
Peeped out with smile so grave and tender,
Like a young Queen upon her crowning-day
Blushing to put on all that gold and splendour—
Up rose the lovers to survey
The marvels yet unseen that round them lay.

Baths beauteous, statelier than of old
Rome's silken Emperors ever planned,
Of every nice degree of heat and cold,
Are ready crystal-filled at hand!
No need have they of fuel or fire
To cook their morning meal to their desire;
'Tis but to scrape a primrose-tinted seam,
Some sulphur-crusted fissure dry
That runs through fern and grass hard by—
Up comes the hot and fizzing steam,

Wherein—or plunged in water boiling blue,
The food suspended is without ado
In style as wholesome quickly drest
As Savarin's choicest, Soyer's best.

II.

Forthwith their gladsome way they take
To all the marvels of the Lake.
To Wáta-poho's endless wail
They list—the groans its tortures wrest
From its hard agonizing breast,
So hollow, inward-deep and fierce,
As upward shoot its showers intense,
Cramming the narrow shaft they pierce
Through shuddering rocks blanched ashy-pale;
Hot water, steam and sulphur-smoke
Commingling in one column dense
Of white terrific turbulence!
But other gentler feelings woke
Its sister-fountain welling nigh
Whose bursts of grief for moments brief
Long-intervalled, in streams outbroke,
And then would sink away and die
With such soft moan relapsing slow—
Such long-drawn breath of utter woe—
It well became its mournful name,
‘Ko-ingo’—‘Love's desponding Sigh.’

They visit then that narrow glen,
Where at the foot of hills forlorn,
Silicious slabs of spar flood-borne,

Like cakes of ice when Spring is young,
Burst up by freshets wild, are flung.
And slow they pick their cautious way
By liquid beds of creamy clay,
Where large white nipples rise and sink,
And lazy bubbles break and fume,
Up to a small square tarn pea-green—
As green and bright as malachite,
Beneath a crimson cliff in part
White-mottled, but along the brink
Of that clear water's grass-hued sheen
(Where azure dragon-flies will dart
A moment)—feathered rich and dark
With mánuka like fragrant broom.
And near the valley's mouth they mark,
Where thickets dense scarce leave a track,
A boiling mud-pool sputtering black
And baleful;—mark, above its gloom
What weird wild shapes the rocks assume!
Here, worn by water's sapping might,
Time-crennelled turrets half o'erthrown;
There, idols blurred by ages' flight
To shapes of unconjectured stone;
Now on the hill's low brow upright,
Like men who walk in dreams by night,
Dumbfounded, tottering—lost and lone;
Now, muffled forms their faces shrouding
Opprest with some unheard-of doom;
Or woe-struck up the hillside crowding—
Funereal mourners round a tomb:—
Grotesque and ominous and grim,
As Doré's wonder-teeming whim
E'er forged and fixed in stony trance
Of subtle-shaped significance.

III.

And next across the Lake they steer
To see that fair cascaded stair
That yester-eve they passed so near—
‘The Fountain of the Clouded Sky,’
Tu-kápua-rangi—fitly styled,
It flings its steam so wide and high.
'Tis rosy rime they climb this time;
For floors and fringes, terrace piled
O'er terrace, glow with faint carmine
As fashioned of carnelian fine;
As if, continuous, full, from heaven
Some wide white avalanche downward driven
Came pouring out of Sunset, stained
With sanguine hues it still retained.

But at the topmost terrace—lo,
A vision like a lovely dream!—
A basin large, its further marge
And surface slightly veiled with steam
That thinly driving o'er it flies,
Spreads, level with the level plain
Of smoothest milk-white marble grain:
And broad all round that basin's brink
A double stripe—one delicate pink—
One lemon-yellow—bordering dyes
That whiteness, and with even hues,
Fair as a rainbow laid on snow,
Its wavy outline still pursues.

But through the driving vapour, see,
Translucent depths of azure, bright

And soft as heaven's divinest blue—
A gulf profound of liquid light!
And from those depths, uprising through
That azure light—yet all beneath
The steaming surface—still as death,
In snowy mute solemnity,
A mighty forward-bending peak
Of marble bows; shaped like a paw,
Say, some enormous polar bear's,
Thick-set with many a flattened claw,
All one way level-pointing—scale
O'er scale like th' Indian pangolin's mail—
All snowiest alabaster!—Weak,
Too weak, were any words to speak
The hushed mysterious charm it wears,
That ghostly-lovely miracle,
Whose sides of snow far down below
In boiling light that round them lies,
Fade where the clear cerulean glow
Of that unfathomed fervent well
In tenderest turquoise dimness dies!

O well may Ranolf for a while
Enthusiast-like, sit rapt before
That heaven-blue gulf and rock snow-white,
Unconscious even of Amo's smile,
Unconscious of her joyous eyes,
And loving arms he scarce could feel
That softly would around him steal
As silent by his side she lay
On that pure speckless snowy floor
With pink and saffron purfle gay.

IV.

Thus all the varied fountains found
Among the ferny hills that bound
Mahana, and a mile around,—
Of every flow and hue and sound
They visit;—tall columnar mound
And diamond-cone, and haycock-heap
Of boiling snow, and springs that leap
And languish, spurting fitful spray,
And cloud-crowned stems of steam that spout
At seasons, or shoot up alway;
Hid white about this verdurous waste
Like statues in proud gardens placed.
And one large font whose hollow bed
With branching emerald coral spread,
Through brilliant boiling crystal spied,
Looks daintiest moss green-petrified!

And sights as dread they meet throughout,
As wild Imagination's worst
Of black hell-broths and witches' bowls
Infernal—Dante-pits accurst,
Here realized in cankerous holes
And sloughs of mud as red as blood,
Pitch-black, or viscid yellow-drab,
Or pap of clay light-bluish gray,
Or sulphurous gruel thick and slab:
Each sputtering, hot, commixture dire,
Earth mineral-stuffed, and flood and fire,
Together pashed and pent-up make,
And fuse in sluggish fever nought can slake.

So passed the day; and swiftly sped
Mid scenes where marvels ever varying rise;
The wanderers' eyes with wonder ever fed—
Bright with continual flashes of surprise.

V.

Late after noon it was, when tired the pair
Returning to their starting point, once more
Beside the mighty geyser stood
That flings a panting column high in air—
‘Ohápu’—‘Fountain of the dreadful Roar.’

Their fancy sated with the sight of fear,
They sate upon the hill above
That cauldron, in the shade of rocky wood
By bursting spring and boiling flood
Distorted;—sate in lounging mood
In careless converse, to themselves how dear!
(Is any talk too trifling for true love?)
Where still the Geyser's raging they could hear.

—“This loitering through the land on foot,
Now slow, now faster, as may suit
One's humour best, I do enjoy
So thoroughly—did always from a boy!”—
Said Ranolf, as himself he threw
Upon the stunted fern—“Do you?”

“On foot!” said Amo, “how else could you go?
Though in your land, I've heard, indeed,
That travellers sometimes go at greater speed
In strangest style—I ne'er believed it, though.”

“What did you hear, my Amo?”

“It was he
E Ruka, who had sailed beyond the sea;
But he so many monstrous stories told
With face so true, by young and old
‘Kai-títo-nui’ he was named,
‘The big lie-swallower;’ ‘pumpkin-headed’ too,
To take whate'er he heard for true—
They called him. I should be ashamed
His silly solemn stories to repeat.”

“But let me hear about the travelling, sweet!”

“Well, promise not to laugh—at least, not laugh
Too much at me. I did not credit half
The story, mind. He said, your people use
To travel in, great land-canoes,
Dragged by enormous dogs as tall
As men, or taller; nay, more strange—
A thing that had to do with travel,
Though how, I could not quite unravel—
That beasts about your country range
To which the mighty Moas were small
Our songs make mention of; that these
Gigantic monsters, each and all
Have double heads and shoulders double,
Six legs or so; and therefore go
Swift as the wind; then without trouble
Can split in two whene'er they please,

And both the fragments when they sever,
Can run about as well as ever!—

Nay, now, but I will hold your lips—
You are not to laugh so—understand;
I will not take away my hand,
Kiss as you may my finger-tips.”

The fact explained to her well nigh
As wondrous as the fiction seemed:
What! get astride those beasts and fly!
'Twas like what Maui did or schemed,
Who fished the Isles up—almost hitched
The Sun into his noose, and then
Had freed the happy sons of men
From Night—Death—every denizen
Of Darkness—all the evil crew
Of powers bewitching or bewitched.

VI.

“My Child—but these are trifles to
The wondrous things our people do.—”

He pointed toward the place where bellowing, crashing,
That fierce terrific Hotspring raged;
With monstrous head in furious foam upsoaring,
And boiling billows round the crater dashing,
Its crusted soot-brown sides like demons lashing;
Or if a moment from its maddest mood
The lapsing Geyser seemed to sink assuaged,
Mounting again amid the ceaseless roaring,

Like hissing Cobra with inflated hood
Upswelling swift—its reeking rush renewing,
With force and frenzy evermore accruing!

“You hear,” he said, “that hell-pool dread:
What would you think if I should say
My people have the skill to yoke
The fiercest whirls of steam that ever broke
From that tremendous pit of wrath, and tether
As many moving houses gay
Behind it, as would all your tribe contain;
Then make it whisk them o'er the plain,
Aye! all your Tribe at once together,
As smoothly, rapidly as flew
The Kingfisher the other day
With chestnut breast and back so blue
That round our heads came swooping, screaming,
Because we chanced to saunter near
The barkless twisted tree-trunk (gleaming
In sunshine silver-sharp and clear
Against far purple hills) that hid
The nest wherein his young ones lay?”

“Well, but if such a word you spoke
I could but think, I could but say,
'Twas my Ranoro's whim to joke;
And on her fond reliance play
Who takes and trusts his every word,
As if an Atua's voice she heard.”

“Nay; pretty one! 'tis simple fact—
No silly jest, but truth exact.”

“Well, then, my Chief, my Master dear
Shall do as I, his handmaid, bid,
And let me all the wonder hear.”

“Your language has no words, I fear—”

“Ah, we poor Maori! worthless still,
In deeds and words, no power, no skill!—
But tell me—that tremendous flying
Is it not something dreadful, frightful
Your people tremble at, while trying?”

“Not dreadful, dearest, but delightful—”
And then with her request complying,
“See—” he went on, as best he could, constraining
Strange words and strange ideas to fit—
Though all the interruptions we omit
Where foreign thought or phrase required explaining:—
“See! all in order ranged at hand
The moving houses ready stand;
Your tribe all ranged in order too,
Inside them sit—imagine how;
We take our places, I and you—”

(“Yes—were I close to you as now!”—)

“Impatient frets the giant, Steam,—
You hear his wild complaining scream;
You hear him hissing ere he start
Like pinned-down Snake that strives to dart;

Then off at once! in perfect row
Swift as a lance your warriors throw,
Men, houses, all, away we go!—
Give place! give place! in silent race
The distant woods each other chase!
Trees, hedges, hamlets—far and wide,
They reel and spin, they shift and slide!
The dim horizon all alive—
Hills, plains and forests, how they drive!
Determined to keep up and see
They shoot ahead as fast as we:
But nearer objects, soon as spied,
Detach themselves and backward glide,
Behind us drifting one by one;
Wink past the others and are gone!
See! parallel field-furrows broad
That lie right-angled to the road,
Like swiftly-turning wheel-spokes play—
Turn—open—float and flit away!
More speed—more speed! and shriller cries!
The panting road begins to rise,
And like a whirling grindstone flies!
The fields close by can scarce be seen,
A swift continuous stream of green!—

—But fix upon the scene around
A steadier glance—in how profound
A stillness seems that hamlet bound:
How solemn, in secluded meadows
Those oak trees standing on their shadows;
That church-tower wrapt in ivy-fleece,
How sacred its inviolate peace!

The riot of our wild career
Seems rushing through a land asleep
Where all things rapt—entranced, appear,
Or if they move, can only creep;
The lightest car, the heaviest wain—
(Those land-canoes, you know, we use)
And walking men whose figures plain
A moment on the eye remain,
Seem toiling backwards, all in vain!—
Then sudden—close—ere you can think,
The blackest blinding midnight seems
To make your very eyeballs shrink;
The air is dank—a hollow roar
And deeper, harsher than before
Is mingled with the Giant's screams,
As—all the houses in a row—
Right through a Mountain's heart we go!
But swiftly from the jaws of night
Emerging, screeching with delight,
Outcomes with unabated might
The Monster and pursues his flight!
In snowy stream thick-issuing flies
His furious breath across the skies:
Each labourer as the ponderous whirr,
The hammer-beats, incessant, strong,
And fast as flap of flying bird,
The monster's eager pulse, are heard,
Suspends the busy fork or prong
And turns to look, but scarce can see
The phantom, ere the rush and stir,
Men, monster, long-linked houses, we—
All smoothly thundering, tearing on,
A human hurricane—are gone!”—

VII.

She listened with rapt lips asunder,
And rounded eyes of brilliant wonder:
Love lent her Faith—nor could she draw
Distinctions nice between what broke
Or did not break, the natural law;
But could she, 'twould have been the same;
Not what was said, but he who spoke
Made what she heard as what she saw.
That cloudy madness chained and curbed—
And all her Tribe turned undisturbed
Into a screeching bird that flew
Unchecked the yielding Mountains through!
What myth could daunt her after that?
What miracle could Superstition name
Were not beside it commonplace and flat—
To stagger her belief, too tame?—

“These foreigners,” she smiled, “'tis true,
Whate'er they wish, their Atuas do!”

“An Atua—yes! divine not dread—”
(But this was rather thought than said)
“Could I but make her understand
How this benignant Genie grand,
In form so fierce, in deeds so bland,
Is toiling still o'er sea and land
With might unwearied and unworn
By slow degrees to raise Mankind;
Bestowing god-like powers, designed

For mightier millions yet unborn,
To wrest her plenteous treasure-horn
From Nature's wise reluctant hand;
Consigning so to second place
The Body's too absorbing claims;
Clearing the ground for higher aims;
Wiping the tears from Man's sad face;
Amalgamating every race—
Creating Time—destroying Space.”

Canto the Seventh. English Maidens.

1. Return to the great Terraces. Amo asks about English maidens; 2. Their dress and jewels. 3. Amo mortified. Ranolf's idea of her. 4. Hers of him. The Parthenon. 5. The boiling pool; its blue surface colouring the mist-cloud above it. 6. The singing Islet again.

I.

Now to the Fountain-Stair beside the pass,
The great white Fount, the pair their footsteps turning
Paused to admire the baths, whose sheets of glass,
Warm azure, with the blushing west were burning;
And Amo when her simple phrase had told
The simple triumph that illumed
Her features at her friend's delight
Which seemed to say her country had one sight
At least, as lovely, it must be avowed,
As any in his native land so proud—
The talk where it had broken off resumed:

“Atuas or not—you must be wise and bold
To work the wonders you unfold;

Too ignorant, alas! or dull
Am I, O friend, to comprehend
Such things, I fear. But let me hear—”
She said, in somewhat faltering tone
As shy, lest what she asked make known
More feelings than she cared to own:
“Are not your Maidens beautiful?”

“More so than well my tongue can tell.”

“But not more beautiful than you—”

“Than I!” with laughter loud, he cried:
“As much more as the graceful crane
In dainty plumes without a stain
Than her brown-mottled brother harsh,
The booming bittern of the marsh;
As much more as the fragrant strings
Of milky stars I've seen you tear
From some great forest-galaxy
With their sweet snows to double-dye
The sable splendour of your hair,
Than that vile twine of prickles fine
Which if it touch you cuts and clings
Whene'er you push through briar and bush.”

“But O, describe them, dearest, do!”

“Nay, how portray, how paint or say
What deep enchantment round them lies—
Great Nature's last felicities,

Her happiest strokes of genius! some of whom—
Heart, mind and body, in the May
And melody of perfect bloom
The coldest sceptic must assume
The mighty Master fashioned to display
In one consummate work how he
Could make its outward form a shrine,
A visible symbol and a sign
Of what was throned within—divine!
Aye! spite of Man's idolatry,
For ever pardonably prone
To worship more the shrine than Saint,
And feel from love of that alone
His beauty-burthened Spirit grow
With too much adoration faint—
Resolved in that rare Form to show
For what the rarer Soul was given,—
To be to Man a living light
And lure of spiritual beauty bright,
To lead him on from height to height
Of self-denying Love to heaven!—

But who that outward Shrine can paint,
Whose mortal scarce can its immortal shroud!
What lofty-passioned words and tones
Can picture forth those loveliest ones!
So blossom-cheeked, so heavenly-browed,
With dowry of divinest eyes,
Twin fragments of the azure skies
Beaming celestial blessing through
Pure chastened lids whose perfect white,
And the transparent temples too,

Are stained with streaks of delicate blue
As tender as thick-fallen snow
Deep down in crack and crevice makes
With its own shadow, when the weight
Of piled-up frail congealment breaks.—
Their hair! O take when Morning wakes
Her beams and twine them! pleach and plait
The Moon-sparks shrinking, leaping, linking,
On yonder Lake at midnight—spin them
With all the liquid gold within them
Into fine skeins of splendour! so
You best may guess how tress on tress
In long luxuriant glossiness
Its gleaming undulations flow!—
But you should see—I cannot tell—
What they resemble who so well
Attest what truth of fancy nurst
Your native myth how Woman first
Was fashioned from comminglings sweet
Of brilliant tremors of the noontide heat
That shimmering near you, still retreat,
And airy Echoes, sprites so shy
Yet quick with answering sympathy,
That ever haunting ever hide
Near cliff abrupt and mountain-side;—
With just enough of added Earth
To temper charms of such ethereal birth,
Which else e'en Rapture's self would miss—
Which else its fond embrace would fly—
To something lovelier it can clasp and kiss!”—

II.

“And have they flaxen mantles fair
As this—with broidered border rare?
And do their greenest jewels shine
Like this pellucid jade of mine?”

“For dress they rob the sunset—take
Its gorgeous glisterings from the Lake,
Or swathe their forms in gauzy mist
The Moon might envy them at night,
Pavilioned with pure amethyst,
In pearliest virgin vesture dight!
And as for gems!—they wreathe about
Their arms that dazzle you without,
And necks, that when your eyes you shut,
Leave shapes of sinuous snowy bloom
In vivid loveliness clear cut
And floating on the purple gloom—
Such trails of richest radiance set
In linked array of flower and fret,
As if they strung the beaded clusters,
The little lamping flame-hued lustres,
Sapphires winking, rubies blinking,
Trembling emerald-sparks, adorning
The mist-besilvered meads of morning
When first the Sun new-fires them! Aye
And always had that Sun hard by
To keep them, as his only duty,
Still bristling with all hues of beauty!”—

III.

But while he spoke there stole unseen
O'er Amohia's frank bright face

A shadow—as a slow white cloud
Grows over all the blue sky-space
Left by an opening in the green
O'er-roofing forest thick-emboughed,
And sheds soft gloom where light but now was shining.

He marked the mournful drooping head,
The cheek where sadly-pensive spread
The long-curled lashes low-declining:
“Yet,” said he quickly, “few of those
Have such a faultless form as you,
Whose every facile movement shows
What perfect grace on perfect limbs
The perfect freedom from restraint bestows;
Few such a blithe bright bearing; few
Could bound as is your wont
Up the great mountain-side and chase
The shadow of the cloud that skims
Scarce fleeter in its flying race;
Or at the summit could confront
The bland magnificence of Nature's brow
With such superb and regal innocence
And look and mien so kindred! few have eyes
Of such a brilliant power
They take away your breath and burn
Right through your heart whene'er they turn
Their melting flashes on you! few could shower
Such silky breadths of darkness down as now
I hold between me and their gaze,
To see if still their brightness will
Come breaking through in spurry rays
Like evening sunbeams through a thicket dense!

Yes! howsoe'er those beings fair
With Art to aid and Culture's care
From human almost to divine may rise,
For charms like these, not many there
Could with my Wonder of the Wilds compare!”

IV.

The sunny look at once returned,
And through the clear warm brown discerned,
The blush of artless triumph burned.
Then round his neck her arms she threw
And gazed, with love how fond and true
As upon something to adore,
Upon the face above her; in that vein
When parted lips and anxious sigh confess
Content is at its highest, and the excess
Of pleasure trembles on the brink of pain;
With simplest admiration too
Reading his features o'er and o'er,
As if her eyes could never feed
Enough, nor sate her heart's impassioned greed
For what to her was beautiful indeed:
‘Kai-máta’—‘face-devouring gaze’
Her country's own poetic phrase
Had called the glance that so much love displays.
But how conceive her feeling? how
The picture fond her fancy drew,
The halo round his form she threw!
To that enamoured fancy, quite
Unused to the fair-tinted faces
Of our Caucasian northern races,

This Stranger, with his eyes of sparkling blue
That shone through shadows of a thoughtful brow
Embossed with Intellect, and full and white,
With clustered gold about it curled,
Seemed some high Being from another World!
August and beautiful and bright
To her he well might seem,
As you perchance would deem
Some Phidian Temple must have looked of old;
Where architrave and pediment arise,
With metope-squares of dauntless proud emprise,
And friezes full of life!—serenely bold
Broadly confronting the broad skies,
And throwing deep majestic shade
(As human brow o'er human eyes)
Into the interspaces made
By many a stately colonnade;—
As such a Temple must have looked when bare
Its snowy grace and lovely grandeur first
Upon the shouting people burst!
Its solemn charm that would have awed, almost
In the mere splendour of material lost;
Because so brilliant fresh and new,
So delicately tinted here and there
With rainbow colours pure and fair,
The sculptured Marvel stood in view;
The matchless groups around it rife
In stirring trance of pomp or strife,
Sharp from some famous chisel, every one;
The marble dust of recent working
In glittering specks about them lurking;
All just uncovered to the morning Sun!

V.

But fair as Phidian Temple tinged so purely,
That pure untinged white-terraced Fount corálline
Showed, with its baths cerulean and crystálline,
Whereon they gazed when not upon each other
Their lover-gaze delightedly was dwelling;
When looks, where Love was seated so securely,
To answering looks ceased passionately telling
The tide of tenderness each bosom swelling.
Then, as they watched the huge Steam-cloud that whitely
O'er the main pool, like some nest-brooding mother,
Spread swanlike wings the brilliant water shading,—
Enveloped and imparadised more brightly
In a Love-cloud as fervid and unfading,
They saw how richly, though from surface duller,
That still, suspended Mist reflected duly
The bubbling basin's amethystine colour;
Returning tint for lovely tint as truly
As in their mirrored eyes, fond, deep, untroubled,
They marked, upwelling ever freshly, newly,
Their mutual Love reflected and redoubled!

VI.

Then to the glen that fronts the islets twain
And to their isle itself they come—
That ever-singing isle—through all the train
Of water-birds that swarm the simmering plain,
Thick as the sower's air-scattered grain.
And then their bower of mánuka they gain
Already soothing with a sense of home.
The grateful viands follow, fountain-drest;
And then that churme monotonous, ne'er represt,
Lulls them again entranced to Love's Elysian rest.