III.
“Be wakeful—O be watchful! men at every post around;
Lest on a barren rock hemmed in at morning ye be found!
Hemmed in—blocked up—cut off, by the advancing tide;
O watchful, wakeful be—sharp-eared and lightning-eyed!
By Hari-hari's shore the beetling cliffs (O wakeful be!)
Are at all times and tides beset by the beleaguering Sea.
O watchful, wakeful be! when women wail for warriors lost,
'Tis like the high-complaining surf on Mokau's sounding coast.—
Ay me! Ay me! still creeping nigher—still swarming up and trying
Each ledge where seamews light—where'er their young ones nestle, prying!—
Not so—not so, on us the foe shall steal—yet wakeful be—
O watchful, wakeful till the Sun spring glorious from the Sea!”—
