Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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BOOK THE SECOND. THE SOUTH-SEA VILLAGERS.
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
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BOOK THE SECOND. THE SOUTH-SEA VILLAGERS.
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Canto the First. The Rescue.
1. Ranolf, after a boar-hunt, his dog killed, fancies an after life for lower animals. 2. A new Italy. 3. His joyous and imaginative temperament. 4. A shriek. 5. Amohia. 6. A rescue. 7. Her story. 8. She returns to the Isle in the Lake. 9. His thoughts of her.
I.
“Glorious! this life of lake
And hill-top! toil and tug through tangled brake,
Dense fern, and smothering broom;
And then such rests as now I take
In sunflecked soft cathedral-gloom
Of forests immemorial! Noble sport
Boar-hunting! yet that furious charge, the last
Of the dead monster there had cut it short
For me, and once for all, belike,
Had not his headlong force impaled
The savage on my tough wood-pike
That, propped with planted knee and foot,
Its butt against a rata-root,
From chest to chine right through him passed
And nought his inch-thick hide availed,
Or ring-like tusks upthrusting through
The notches of his foaming lips,
By constant whetting planed away
To chisel-sharpness at their tips:
It weakened him—the knife-dig, too,
He caught when first commenced the fray;
When, as in haste I sprang astride
The narrowed gully—just a ditch
With flowering koromiko rich—
Between my feet the villain drove,
And fierce, with short indignant sniffs,
And grunts like muttering thunder, strove
To gain his haunts beyond the cliffs,
And foil the foes he fled from, yet defied.
And hill-top! toil and tug through tangled brake,
Dense fern, and smothering broom;
And then such rests as now I take
In sunflecked soft cathedral-gloom
Of forests immemorial! Noble sport
Boar-hunting! yet that furious charge, the last
Of the dead monster there had cut it short
For me, and once for all, belike,
Had not his headlong force impaled
The savage on my tough wood-pike
That, propped with planted knee and foot,
Its butt against a rata-root,
From chest to chine right through him passed
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Or ring-like tusks upthrusting through
The notches of his foaming lips,
By constant whetting planed away
To chisel-sharpness at their tips:
It weakened him—the knife-dig, too,
He caught when first commenced the fray;
When, as in haste I sprang astride
The narrowed gully—just a ditch
With flowering koromiko rich—
Between my feet the villain drove,
And fierce, with short indignant sniffs,
And grunts like muttering thunder, strove
To gain his haunts beyond the cliffs,
And foil the foes he fled from, yet defied.
“But Nim, my glorious bull-dog! Nim,
My mighty hunter of the boar,
Who never recked of life or limb
That old antagonist before!
That rip has finished his career—
His last boar-fight is fought; no more
He'll come to greet me as of yore,
Wriggling his lithe spine till his tail
Whipped his black muzzle in the excess
Of cringing canine happiness;
No more his genuine love express
With such dumb signs and tokens clear,
Mock bites and mouthings of the hand,
Easy as words to understand.
Strange, a mere dog should be so dear!
But he is dead, and—done with, must we say?
Poor victim of this universal demon-play
Of Life—my fate to-morrow, his to-day,
Which I, for sport, have sealed—as God (or no God, then
Say you?) that of his myriad worlds and men?
And ‘pluck’ like his, that nought could quail;
Good temper—honest humble love and truth—
These must not live again, forsooth!
No future for the Dog—but why?
Duty, our highest inborn feeling, who
Has stronger than this guardian true
To death? or can we in our own rejoice,
As sprung from self-determined choice?
That Self with so much bias made—
Our Will by strongest motive swayed?
Scarce higher than his, our claims, I fear,
To merit of our own appear.
Then compound, too, not simple, he,
A work complete no more than we,
(If stuff for hope therein may be),
Has not his nature, like our own,
Instincts at war, the lower with the high?
With trusts to be fulfilled, obedience shown—
The longing for the ramble, game forbidden,
Or bone, like miser's treasure, hidden?
And if, instead of eyes that often so
With solemn melancholy glow,
He had but tongue to speak with, who can show
He might not tell of hopes, and dim
Perceptions, yearnings, that no longer dumb,
He, too, may rise to human, and become
Erect some day, a ruler and a lord,
And, like his master, loved, adored,
A visible God and Providence to him—
Though swayed, no doubt, full oft, by rage, caprice and whim.
As good a faith or fancy 'twere
My mighty hunter of the boar,
Who never recked of life or limb
That old antagonist before!
That rip has finished his career—
His last boar-fight is fought; no more
He'll come to greet me as of yore,
Wriggling his lithe spine till his tail
Whipped his black muzzle in the excess
Of cringing canine happiness;
No more his genuine love express
With such dumb signs and tokens clear,
Mock bites and mouthings of the hand,
Easy as words to understand.
Strange, a mere dog should be so dear!
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Poor victim of this universal demon-play
Of Life—my fate to-morrow, his to-day,
Which I, for sport, have sealed—as God (or no God, then
Say you?) that of his myriad worlds and men?
And ‘pluck’ like his, that nought could quail;
Good temper—honest humble love and truth—
These must not live again, forsooth!
No future for the Dog—but why?
Duty, our highest inborn feeling, who
Has stronger than this guardian true
To death? or can we in our own rejoice,
As sprung from self-determined choice?
That Self with so much bias made—
Our Will by strongest motive swayed?
Scarce higher than his, our claims, I fear,
To merit of our own appear.
Then compound, too, not simple, he,
A work complete no more than we,
(If stuff for hope therein may be),
Has not his nature, like our own,
Instincts at war, the lower with the high?
With trusts to be fulfilled, obedience shown—
The longing for the ramble, game forbidden,
Or bone, like miser's treasure, hidden?
And if, instead of eyes that often so
With solemn melancholy glow,
He had but tongue to speak with, who can show
He might not tell of hopes, and dim
Perceptions, yearnings, that no longer dumb,
He, too, may rise to human, and become
Erect some day, a ruler and a lord,
And, like his master, loved, adored,
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Though swayed, no doubt, full oft, by rage, caprice and whim.
To think all conscious creatures—foul or fair,
One universal endless progress share;
In the procession headed by mankind,
Only a march or two behind;
Each rank of God's grand army onward bent
To higher states and stages—who knows where?—
Of free and fortunate development!”
II.
So mused young Ranolf as he lay at ease,Profaning (must we needs confess?)
With chestnut-glossed pet meerschaum the pure breeze;
Enjoying in delicious cool no less
The mighty shade of old majestic trees,
Whose tops the skies beneath our feet immerse,
Far in the land, greenwaving, grand,
Upon our seeming world-medallion's rich reverse:
The ruder Italy laid bare
By that keen Searcher of the Seas
Whose tempest-battling, never-baffled keel,
Left half our planet little to reveal;
But restless roaming everywhere
Zigzagged the vast Pacific as he prest
With godlike patience his benignant quest;
True hero-god, who realized the notion
Its races feign of mythic Maui still,
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A hundred Islands from Oblivion's ocean!
Sea-king and sage—staunch huntsman of pure Fame,
Beating the waste of waters for his game,
Untrodden shores or tribes without a name;
That nothing in an island's shape,
Mist-muffled peak or faint cloud-cape
Might his determined thoughtful glance escape;
No virgin lands be left unknown,
Where future Englands might be sown,
And nations noble as his own!
III.
Loose-clad in careless sailor-guise,But richly robed in that imperial dress
Of symmetry and suppleness
And sinewy strength that Nature's love supplies,
When at youth's prime, her work, superbly planned,
Takes the last touches from her Artist-hand,
Was our new roamer of the forest near
Calm Rotorúa's ferny strand.
To him was not denied, 'twas clear,
That best of boons at her command—
A joyous spirit sparkling like the day,
Set in well-tempered, finely-fashioned clay.
His fair complexion, slightly tanned
By central suns' and oceans' glare;
His eyes' gray gleams and amber hair,
Were such as brighten best where gloom and cold
And sombre clouds harsh northern skies enfold:
But curling locks and lip, and glance
Keen for all beauty everywhere;
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Squarer than pure proportion asked, in cheek
And brow, more thought and firmness to bespeak—
Of southern fervour and quick feeling told.
His love of the mysterious—vast—whate'er
Of solemn and sublime could bear
The soul aloft on wings of thrilling awe;
The restless daring that his reason led
To question all he heard and read;
The senses potent to divine the springs
Of pleasure in a thousand things,
Seemed from each clime some elements to draw
Like Gothic metal run in Grecian mould.
In active body—vigorous mind,
Such seeming contrasts he combined;
Still, in his face whate'er expressions shone,
And to what moods soever he was prone,—
'Twas hardy gladness by strong will controlled—
A summer torrent bounding on incessant
Through rampart layers of glittering stone,
Seemed the habitual and abiding one.
Blithe Hope upon his forehead bold
Sate like a sunbeam on a gilt mosque-crescent;
And oft, in reverie, if he gazed apart,
His eye would kindle as in admiration
Of some past scene to fancy present,
Or glory glowing in the future distance;
As if one breaking morn of gold
Were round Life's whole horizon rolled
As if his pulse beat music, and his heart
Clashed cymbal-bursts of exultation
In the mere rapture of existence!
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IV.
A shriek within the covert near,
A second, third, assailed his ear;
Straight for the sound at once he dashed;
Through tangled boughs and brushwood crashed,
And lopped and slashed the tangles black
Of looped and shining supplejack,
Till on a startling scene he came,
That filled his soul with rage and shame.
A second, third, assailed his ear;
Straight for the sound at once he dashed;
Through tangled boughs and brushwood crashed,
And lopped and slashed the tangles black
Of looped and shining supplejack,
Till on a startling scene he came,
That filled his soul with rage and shame.
Her mantle flung upon the ground,
Her graceful arms behind her bound,
With shoulders bare, dishevelled hair,
There stood a Maiden of the land,
More stately fair than could elsewhere
Through all its ample range be found.
Two of his comrades, hired amid
The tribes whose chieftains held command
O'er all the vales those mountains hid—
Those western mountains forest-crowned—
Wild striplings, who, uncurbed from birth,
Deemed foulest wrong but food for mirth
So that their listless life it stirred,
Were basely busy on each hand,
With flax-blades binding to a tree
The Maid who strove her limbs to free.
They knew her—for they oft had heard
Of that surpassing form and face;
They knew the hate, concealed or shown,
Between her people and their own;
The feuds, when open war would cease,
That smouldered in precarious peace;
They knew the track by which the chase
Had lured them to that lonely place,
Was so unused, so tangled, rough,
They doubtless would have time enough,
And might without pursuit retrace
Their steps through mountain-woods, so dense,
No wrong would be suspected thence,
No outrage dreamt of. So they thought—
If such a thoughtless impulse wild
Of mischief can a thought be styled—
They fancied, when the Maid they caught
At that secluded spot, alone
With one slave-girl (who shrieking fled,
While after her a third accomplice sped
Lest she the alarm too soon should spread)
It was a chance to win a name,
Through many a tribe some facile fame—
Let but their foreign friend agree,
If such a captive to their chief they led,
At his behest, dispose, to be.
Her graceful arms behind her bound,
With shoulders bare, dishevelled hair,
There stood a Maiden of the land,
More stately fair than could elsewhere
Through all its ample range be found.
Two of his comrades, hired amid
The tribes whose chieftains held command
O'er all the vales those mountains hid—
Those western mountains forest-crowned—
Wild striplings, who, uncurbed from birth,
Deemed foulest wrong but food for mirth
So that their listless life it stirred,
Were basely busy on each hand,
With flax-blades binding to a tree
The Maid who strove her limbs to free.
They knew her—for they oft had heard
Of that surpassing form and face;
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Between her people and their own;
The feuds, when open war would cease,
That smouldered in precarious peace;
They knew the track by which the chase
Had lured them to that lonely place,
Was so unused, so tangled, rough,
They doubtless would have time enough,
And might without pursuit retrace
Their steps through mountain-woods, so dense,
No wrong would be suspected thence,
No outrage dreamt of. So they thought—
If such a thoughtless impulse wild
Of mischief can a thought be styled—
They fancied, when the Maid they caught
At that secluded spot, alone
With one slave-girl (who shrieking fled,
While after her a third accomplice sped
Lest she the alarm too soon should spread)
It was a chance to win a name,
Through many a tribe some facile fame—
Let but their foreign friend agree,
If such a captive to their chief they led,
At his behest, dispose, to be.
V.
Not more incensed—scarce lovelier in her wrath—
The silver-bow'd snow-Goddess seen
By rapt Actæon at her awful bath;
Not prouder looked—scarce fiercer in her pride,
The yellow-haired Icenian Queen,
Stung by the tortures she defied;
Than did that flaxen-kilted Maid—
A warmer Dian—at her russet rise
Dun-shining through autumnal mist;
A young Boadicea sunnier skies
Had into browner beauty kissed.
So flashed her eyes with scorn and ire,
They seemed, as deep in purple shade
The slanting sunbeams left the wood
And gloomy yew whereby she stood,
Two glowing gems of hazel fire.
And though a single sparkling tear—
Upon each lower eyelid checked,
Whose thick silk fringe, a coalblack streak,
So darkly decked her flushing cheek
In mellow contrast to its clear
Rich almond brown—alone confest
Some softer feelings lurked among
The passions that her bosom wrung;
Yet indignation's withering flame
So towered and triumphed o'er the rest,
Did so enkindle and inform
Her heaving breast, her writhing frame,
Just then, you would almost have deemed,
Her very tresses as they streamed,
With lightnings from that inner storm
And not with flecks of sunset, gleamed.
The silver-bow'd snow-Goddess seen
By rapt Actæon at her awful bath;
Not prouder looked—scarce fiercer in her pride,
The yellow-haired Icenian Queen,
Stung by the tortures she defied;
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A warmer Dian—at her russet rise
Dun-shining through autumnal mist;
A young Boadicea sunnier skies
Had into browner beauty kissed.
So flashed her eyes with scorn and ire,
They seemed, as deep in purple shade
The slanting sunbeams left the wood
And gloomy yew whereby she stood,
Two glowing gems of hazel fire.
And though a single sparkling tear—
Upon each lower eyelid checked,
Whose thick silk fringe, a coalblack streak,
So darkly decked her flushing cheek
In mellow contrast to its clear
Rich almond brown—alone confest
Some softer feelings lurked among
The passions that her bosom wrung;
Yet indignation's withering flame
So towered and triumphed o'er the rest,
Did so enkindle and inform
Her heaving breast, her writhing frame,
Just then, you would almost have deemed,
Her very tresses as they streamed,
With lightnings from that inner storm
And not with flecks of sunset, gleamed.
“Slaves!” she was saying: “this to me!
Me, Amohia! Know you not
The daughter of the ‘Sounding Sea?’
Is Tangi-möana forgot?
When he shall this vile outrage know,
Your homes shall blaze, your hearts'-blood flow;
A life for every hair shall pay
Of her you've dared insult this day!”
Me, Amohia! Know you not
The daughter of the ‘Sounding Sea?’
Is Tangi-möana forgot?
When he shall this vile outrage know,
Your homes shall blaze, your hearts'-blood flow;
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Of her you've dared insult this day!”
VI.
Swift to her aid our Wanderer sprung,
Aside those ruffians roughly flung;
Cut, tore away, the bonds that laced
Those tender arms, that slender waist;
Reproached, rebuked with sarcasm strong
The culprits for their coward wrong;
The Maid with soothing words addrest—
Regret and deep disgust expressed
At what disturbed her—so distrest;
By every gesture, look, declared
How much her grief and pain he shared;
Urged all that might with most effect
Her anger stay, her grief allay,
And smooth her ruffled self-respect.
Aside those ruffians roughly flung;
Cut, tore away, the bonds that laced
Those tender arms, that slender waist;
Reproached, rebuked with sarcasm strong
The culprits for their coward wrong;
The Maid with soothing words addrest—
Regret and deep disgust expressed
At what disturbed her—so distrest;
By every gesture, look, declared
How much her grief and pain he shared;
Urged all that might with most effect
Her anger stay, her grief allay,
And smooth her ruffled self-respect.
And if, while thus the Maid he freed
With eager haste, and soon replaced
Her mantle, tagged with sable cords
Of silky flax in simple taste,
He could not choose but interfuse
Some looks amid his cheering words,
Keen admiration's natural meed
To one with so much beauty graced;
Think you, this stranger's form and mien
Could fail to make their influence felt;
Unconscious though she might have been
Of their magnetic power to melt,
Pierce, permeate her spirit's gloom,
And all her brightening breast illume,
Till docile, ductile, it became
To his persuasive voice's sway—
Mild breathings of discretion, reason's claim;
As on a summer day
The silent sunbeams sink into and fill
A snowy cloud, and make it lighter still
For gentlest breeze to bear away?
And pleased was he, surprised to mark
How swiftly vanished every trace
Of passion so tempestuous, dark;
Its shadow floating off a face
Where, sooth to say, at any time
It seemed as alien, out of place,
As some great prey-bird's, haply seen,
Not mid the awful regions where he breeds,
Sky-sweeping mountains, towering peaks sublime,
But in a land with daisied lawns and meads
And rippling seas of poppied corn serene.
With eager haste, and soon replaced
Her mantle, tagged with sable cords
Of silky flax in simple taste,
He could not choose but interfuse
Some looks amid his cheering words,
Keen admiration's natural meed
To one with so much beauty graced;
Think you, this stranger's form and mien
Could fail to make their influence felt;
Unconscious though she might have been
Of their magnetic power to melt,
Pierce, permeate her spirit's gloom,
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Till docile, ductile, it became
To his persuasive voice's sway—
Mild breathings of discretion, reason's claim;
As on a summer day
The silent sunbeams sink into and fill
A snowy cloud, and make it lighter still
For gentlest breeze to bear away?
And pleased was he, surprised to mark
How swiftly vanished every trace
Of passion so tempestuous, dark;
Its shadow floating off a face
Where, sooth to say, at any time
It seemed as alien, out of place,
As some great prey-bird's, haply seen,
Not mid the awful regions where he breeds,
Sky-sweeping mountains, towering peaks sublime,
But in a land with daisied lawns and meads
And rippling seas of poppied corn serene.
VII.
And all her story soon was told;How she had left Mokoia's isle
That central in the lake alone
Rose high—a bristling mountain-hold
With fort and fosse—a dark green boss
On that bright shield of azure-stone;
Had left the isle, the time to while
With one companion in her light canoe;
While in a larger came a fisher-crew
She wiselier should have kept in view.
132
Grown weary in the glaring noon;
So landed, from the sun's attacks
Their splendour-puckered eyebrows to relax
In the refreshing grateful shade
A clump of trees not distant made.
Thence to a spot amid the level hills
Of Rangikáhu, where a hotspring fills,
Near a deserted settlement,
A square stone-tank ('twas Miroa's whim), they went
To boil some sweet roots which they found
As they expected in a patch
Of old abandoned garden-ground.
That done, they strolled the forest through,
And strolled to little purpose too;
Had tried a parrot for a pet to catch
In vain; had seen, by marshy glade
Or woodside brake, look where they might,
No tangle of convolvulus to twine
Into rich coronals of cups aglow
With deep rose-purple or delicate white
Pink-flushed as sunset-tinted snow;
No clematis, so lovely in decline,
Whose star-flowers when they cease to shine
Fade into feathery wreaths silk-bright
And silvery-curled, as beauteous. And they knew
The early season could not yet
Have ripened the alectryon's beads of jet,
Each on its scarlet strawberry set,
Whence sweet cosmetic oils they press
Their glittering blue-black hair to dress
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So they had loitered objectless,
And chaunting songs or chatting strayed
Till by his rude associates met.
VIII.
Her simple story told, the MaidAsked in her turn the Wanderer's name;
Tried to pronounce it too; but still
With pretty looks of mock distress
And scorn at her own want of skill,
And tempting twisting lips no stain
Of tattoo had turned azure—found
“Ranolf” too strange and harsh a sound
For her harmonious speech to frame;
So after various efforts vain
“Ranóro” it at last became,
The nearest imitation plain
Her liquid accents could attain.
Thus, when at length they reached the shore,
Had found and freed and comforted
The damsel who at first had fled
(Poor little Miroa, weeping sore),
And launched the small canoe once more,
'Twas with a farewell kind and gay
She bade the stranger “Go his way;”
'Twas with her radiant ready smile
She started for the mountain-isle,
Which then, one mass of greenish gold,
Shone out in sharp relief and bold
134
In solemn violet-gloom—grim, dark and cold.
IX.
So towards his tent his steps he bent;
Nor marvel if as home he went
His thoughts to her would still recur:—
“—But Amohia! what a glorious creature
In every gesture, every feature!
Such melting brilliant eyes! I swear
They cast a shadow from whate'er
They rest upon! I do believe they throw
Such shifting circlets of soft light
On what she looks at, as a sunbeam weaves
On the green darkness of the noonday woods
Through chinks in the transparent leaves!
And then her hair! to see it but unbound!
Such black abundant floods
Of tresses making midnight all around
For those twin stars to shine through! while between
In glimpses the fair neck was seen
Just as at night upon those white
And windheaped hummocks of glimmering sand—
Thickflowing sand—so finely sifted
By the gales whereby 'twas drifted—
Soft patches of pale moonlight stand
Beside their sable shadows. Then her teeth!
All things that most of whiteness boast
How dull and dim beside them! The far wreath
Of snow upon those peaks eternal—
The sea-foam creaming round the coast—
The wave-bleached shell upon it tost—
No, none of these—perhaps the kernel
Of a young cocoanut when newly broken
Would best their blue-white purity betoken.
But these are graces to be left unspoken
Beside the soul—the spirit's charm
That from some well of witchery internal
Comes dancing up—confiding—warm,
All diamond dew of pure delight upspringing—
Such sparkling spray of kindliness outflinging!—
How frank and noble is her face!
And what a sunny pride and sweetness lies
In those open brilliant eyes!
Her voice chimes like a merry bird's;
How winning are her cheerful words!—
With what a blithe and stately grace
She drew her glistening flaxen mat,
With chequered border decked,
Into the hollows of her wavy form,
And stepped away erect!—
A maiden of a million that!—”
Nor marvel if as home he went
His thoughts to her would still recur:—
“—But Amohia! what a glorious creature
In every gesture, every feature!
Such melting brilliant eyes! I swear
They cast a shadow from whate'er
They rest upon! I do believe they throw
Such shifting circlets of soft light
On what she looks at, as a sunbeam weaves
On the green darkness of the noonday woods
Through chinks in the transparent leaves!
And then her hair! to see it but unbound!
Such black abundant floods
Of tresses making midnight all around
For those twin stars to shine through! while between
In glimpses the fair neck was seen
Just as at night upon those white
And windheaped hummocks of glimmering sand—
Thickflowing sand—so finely sifted
By the gales whereby 'twas drifted—
Soft patches of pale moonlight stand
Beside their sable shadows. Then her teeth!
All things that most of whiteness boast
How dull and dim beside them! The far wreath
Of snow upon those peaks eternal—
The sea-foam creaming round the coast—
The wave-bleached shell upon it tost—
135
Of a young cocoanut when newly broken
Would best their blue-white purity betoken.
But these are graces to be left unspoken
Beside the soul—the spirit's charm
That from some well of witchery internal
Comes dancing up—confiding—warm,
All diamond dew of pure delight upspringing—
Such sparkling spray of kindliness outflinging!—
How frank and noble is her face!
And what a sunny pride and sweetness lies
In those open brilliant eyes!
Her voice chimes like a merry bird's;
How winning are her cheerful words!—
With what a blithe and stately grace
She drew her glistening flaxen mat,
With chequered border decked,
Into the hollows of her wavy form,
And stepped away erect!—
A maiden of a million that!—”
Strange power of beauty! in a moment's space
It photographs itself upon the brain,
And though with limnings soft as light, imprints—
Burns in, such deep encaustic tints,
The finest line, the tenderest stain,
No future impress can displace,
No wear and tear of Time efface!
It photographs itself upon the brain,
And though with limnings soft as light, imprints—
Burns in, such deep encaustic tints,
The finest line, the tenderest stain,
No future impress can displace,
No wear and tear of Time efface!
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Canto the Second. The ‘Sounding Sea.’
1. A great Maori Chieftain; what he prides himself on. 2. Worst native vices now extinct. 3. Tangi persists in his native faith. 4. A born Leader. 5. A thunderstorm. Amo out on the Lake. Tangi exorcises the God of Storms. 6. Her return with a messenger.
I.
A fine old sturdy stalwart stubborn Chief
Was Tangi-Möana, the ‘Sounding Sea’:
Both brave and wise in his degree.
In Council calm, no windy waterspout,
He loved with some bold figure brief,
In words—or blunt symbolic act without—
To clench and quench discussion quietly.
But there so careless of distinction, he
Was a conspicuous, restless, fiery guiding-Star
And rocklike rallying-point in war.
Was Tangi-Möana, the ‘Sounding Sea’:
Both brave and wise in his degree.
In Council calm, no windy waterspout,
He loved with some bold figure brief,
In words—or blunt symbolic act without—
To clench and quench discussion quietly.
But there so careless of distinction, he
Was a conspicuous, restless, fiery guiding-Star
And rocklike rallying-point in war.
His many merits how shall we repeat?
In all that most adorns a Chief complete.
Highborn—of ancient perfect pedigree,
The carved and saw-notched stick, his family-tree
And roll heraldic, where each tooth expressed
A male progenitor, concisely showed
How still through these his lineage proud had flowed.
For not a single gap confessed
The rank did ever in a female vest,
Since from that blissful Isle divine
Far o'er the azure hyaline—
That sunlit vision seen sublime
Faint glimmering through thick mists of Time,
The cradle of his race, in legends yet
Embalmed, a fond ideal for regret;—
Since from Hawaiki, tempest-driven,
Or roaming restless for a wider home,
Five hundred years ago had come
The mighty Founder of his line,
Commanding (one of those primeval Seven)
His old hereditary grand Canoe.
In all that most adorns a Chief complete.
Highborn—of ancient perfect pedigree,
The carved and saw-notched stick, his family-tree
And roll heraldic, where each tooth expressed
A male progenitor, concisely showed
How still through these his lineage proud had flowed.
For not a single gap confessed
The rank did ever in a female vest,
Since from that blissful Isle divine
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That sunlit vision seen sublime
Faint glimmering through thick mists of Time,
The cradle of his race, in legends yet
Embalmed, a fond ideal for regret;—
Since from Hawaiki, tempest-driven,
Or roaming restless for a wider home,
Five hundred years ago had come
The mighty Founder of his line,
Commanding (one of those primeval Seven)
His old hereditary grand Canoe.
To all the unkempt Aristocrats around
Who could a better model be
Of all befitting their degree?
For costlier mantles, richer in design,
No chief more carelessly possessed:
None with a choicer feather-crest
Would, when occasion needed it, be crowned;
Had those rare plumes in heir-loom chest preserved
More richly carved, more elegantly curved;
There, with green nephrite pendants safely hid,
Though loose its oval-shaped, oil-darkened lid—
His sole tapu a far securer guard
Than lock and key of craftiest notch and ward.
And none gave ampler feasts—displayed
War-clubs of more transparent jade:
And finer closer spirals of dark blue
Were never seen than in his cheek's tattoo;
Fine as if engine-turned those curves declared
No cost to fee the Artist had been spared;
That many a basket of good maize had made
That craftsman careful how he tapped his blade,
And many a greenstone trinket had been given
To get his chisel-flint so deftly driven.
Who could a better model be
Of all befitting their degree?
For costlier mantles, richer in design,
No chief more carelessly possessed:
None with a choicer feather-crest
Would, when occasion needed it, be crowned;
Had those rare plumes in heir-loom chest preserved
More richly carved, more elegantly curved;
There, with green nephrite pendants safely hid,
Though loose its oval-shaped, oil-darkened lid—
His sole tapu a far securer guard
Than lock and key of craftiest notch and ward.
And none gave ampler feasts—displayed
War-clubs of more transparent jade:
And finer closer spirals of dark blue
Were never seen than in his cheek's tattoo;
Fine as if engine-turned those curves declared
No cost to fee the Artist had been spared;
138
That craftsman careful how he tapped his blade,
And many a greenstone trinket had been given
To get his chisel-flint so deftly driven.
II.
Now at the time whereof we tell,The white man's creed—the potent spell
Of civilised communion—had begun
Their work about the borders of the land.
Before that higher light, and influence bland,
As night recedes long ere you see the sun,
The most revolting vices of the race,
(Among ev'n those who never would embrace
The new belief)—child-murder and the feast
That sinks the cannibal below the beast
His better there,—the ghoullike foul disgrace,
Had slunk away abashed and wholly ceased.
As, when you turn upon a sea-creek's shore,
Some limpet-crusted boulder o'er,
The reptile life that swarmed and skulked beneath
So close that nothing there had seemed to breathe—
Sea-centipedes and purple crabs and worms
Threadlike blood-red—and limbless fleshy forms,
Swiftly or slowly—all before the light,
Shrink—wriggle—scuttle sidelong out of sight;
So had those viler vices taken flight.
III.
And Tangi and his tribe thus much had gained,
Those vices lost, but all their gods retained.
A love of change was never fault of his,
And least he fancied such a change as this.
Once when a zealous teacher from the North
The terrors of his creed had thundered forth—
Unfolded with keen zest and kind desire
To save his hearers from so sad a fate,
His pleasant faith in everlasting fire,
And painted all the pangs the damned await—
While horror blanched the cheeks of half the crowd,
Old Tangi roared with laughter long and loud:
That Hell of theirs, he said, might be a place
Wholesome and fitting for the white man's race,
No Maori was half bad enough to be
Doomed to so horrible a destiny:
Had a good Spirit destined for such woe
His children after death, he long ago
Had sent some trusty friend to let them know;
But he for his part would have nought to do
With any Atua, whether false or true,
Who could delight his direst foe to see
The victim of such monstrous cruelty.
And when he learnt what adverse sects prevailed
And how each other's doctrines they assailed,
He held his hand out, with the fingers spread—
“So many ways to heaven you teach,” he said;
“When you have fixed the right one and none doubt it,
'Twill then be time for me to think about it.”
Those vices lost, but all their gods retained.
A love of change was never fault of his,
And least he fancied such a change as this.
139
The terrors of his creed had thundered forth—
Unfolded with keen zest and kind desire
To save his hearers from so sad a fate,
His pleasant faith in everlasting fire,
And painted all the pangs the damned await—
While horror blanched the cheeks of half the crowd,
Old Tangi roared with laughter long and loud:
That Hell of theirs, he said, might be a place
Wholesome and fitting for the white man's race,
No Maori was half bad enough to be
Doomed to so horrible a destiny:
Had a good Spirit destined for such woe
His children after death, he long ago
Had sent some trusty friend to let them know;
But he for his part would have nought to do
With any Atua, whether false or true,
Who could delight his direst foe to see
The victim of such monstrous cruelty.
And when he learnt what adverse sects prevailed
And how each other's doctrines they assailed,
He held his hand out, with the fingers spread—
“So many ways to heaven you teach,” he said;
“When you have fixed the right one and none doubt it,
'Twill then be time for me to think about it.”
Sometimes indeed when young hardheaded minions
From seaside tribes would urge these new opinions,
Our Chief, for argument was not his forte,
With calm remonstrance tried to cut them short:
What all their ancestors and his believed
Why could not they? that which was good enough
For them, might well content, as he conceived,
Such youngsters;—husky grew his voice and gruff:
“What give up all our good old ways—the charms
And ceremonies practised all our lives
To make our Men all warriors, brave in arms,
Our Women skilful, chaste, industrious wives;—
Give up our wars—war-dances—tauas—taboo,
Whence all our wealth, and power, and fame accrue,
For these new notions! were they all to cease
For this effeminate creed of love and peace!”—
But when the good old Chief found all he felt
So strongly had no power to move or melt
His tough opponents, he the point pursued
No further—but with self-complaisance stout
Closed with that comfort—wherein oft no doubt
Much abler controversialists conclude—
“'Twas self-sufficiency—'twas downright mere
Conceit that would not see a case so clear—
'Twas rage for talk, or love of contradiction,
That would not be convinced”—by his conviction!
From seaside tribes would urge these new opinions,
Our Chief, for argument was not his forte,
With calm remonstrance tried to cut them short:
What all their ancestors and his believed
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For them, might well content, as he conceived,
Such youngsters;—husky grew his voice and gruff:
“What give up all our good old ways—the charms
And ceremonies practised all our lives
To make our Men all warriors, brave in arms,
Our Women skilful, chaste, industrious wives;—
Give up our wars—war-dances—tauas—taboo,
Whence all our wealth, and power, and fame accrue,
For these new notions! were they all to cease
For this effeminate creed of love and peace!”—
But when the good old Chief found all he felt
So strongly had no power to move or melt
His tough opponents, he the point pursued
No further—but with self-complaisance stout
Closed with that comfort—wherein oft no doubt
Much abler controversialists conclude—
“'Twas self-sufficiency—'twas downright mere
Conceit that would not see a case so clear—
'Twas rage for talk, or love of contradiction,
That would not be convinced”—by his conviction!
And so a hearty heathen he remained,
And those new whimsies quietly disdained;
He fed his Gods and fee'd his priests so well,
What was to him the white Man's heaven or hell?
A Priest himself and half a God or quite,
Did not the elements confess his might?
At least all said so—and if failure wrought
Misgiving, still desire constrained his thought;
The failure proved the counteracting spite
Of rival Gods into collision brought,—
Against his own pretensions argued nought.
Nor wonder this should be; when low and base
Man's notions of a God, and vain and high
Those of himself, as with a barbarous race
And minds uncultured ever is the case,
Men may believe their own divinity:
Manhood and Godhood come so near together
They may be made to mingle and agree
Without much stretch of Faith's or Fancy's tether.
And thus our Chieftain felt; if he excelled
In attributes for which his Gods were held
Divine—might he not be their equal too?
Could he not at his pleasure save or slay,
A Lord of life and death as well as they?
And for those elements—'twas but mistaking
The still unknown and so obscure relations
Between the Spirit mystical outbreaking
Through all the manifold manifestations
Of Nature, and the surer Spirit illuming
His own as mystic Being, and mastery thence,
In pride of his superior excellence,
Over that other phase of Spirit assuming.
And those new whimsies quietly disdained;
He fed his Gods and fee'd his priests so well,
What was to him the white Man's heaven or hell?
A Priest himself and half a God or quite,
Did not the elements confess his might?
At least all said so—and if failure wrought
Misgiving, still desire constrained his thought;
The failure proved the counteracting spite
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Against his own pretensions argued nought.
Nor wonder this should be; when low and base
Man's notions of a God, and vain and high
Those of himself, as with a barbarous race
And minds uncultured ever is the case,
Men may believe their own divinity:
Manhood and Godhood come so near together
They may be made to mingle and agree
Without much stretch of Faith's or Fancy's tether.
And thus our Chieftain felt; if he excelled
In attributes for which his Gods were held
Divine—might he not be their equal too?
Could he not at his pleasure save or slay,
A Lord of life and death as well as they?
And for those elements—'twas but mistaking
The still unknown and so obscure relations
Between the Spirit mystical outbreaking
Through all the manifold manifestations
Of Nature, and the surer Spirit illuming
His own as mystic Being, and mastery thence,
In pride of his superior excellence,
Over that other phase of Spirit assuming.
IV.
Such was this Tangi—such ‘The Sounding Sea’;Of form almost gigantic he—
Bull-necked, square-jawed, bold-eyed, firm-lipped, high-browed,
His looks proclaimed his character aloud.
And when he stood forth in full height and pride
In flowing vest of silky flax, undyed,
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Black points of cord, alternate, hanging free;
And o'er it, down to the brown ankles bare
A mantle of white wild-dog fur well-dressed,
Its skirt's broad rim tan-hued; his snowy hair
Crowned with a jet-black arching crest
Of hoopoe-feathers stuck upright,
Their tips a crescent of pure white;
And in his hand, to order with or smite,
The greenstone baton broad of war or rule,
Green, smooth and oval as a cactus leaf—
Did he not look, aye, every inch a Chief?
Did not each glance and gesture stamp him then,
Self-heralded a God-made King of Men?
V.
A thunderstorm was sweeping o'er the Lake,The hills had whitened off in sudden mist
That soon grew leaden-livid; flake on flake
The fine spray smoked along the watery floor—
Till plumb-down rushed the rain's impetuous pour;
A thousand claps of thunder seemed to break
Confusedly all at once—with clattering roar
Tumbled about the air or groaning rolled,
As if some race Titanic storming Heaven
From ponderous unimaginable wains
On rocky grating causeways headlong driven,
Shot crashing mountains on the skyey plains;
Or if the tumult for a moment stopped
You heard the torrent rain how loud it hissed,
As if a hecatomb of bulls at least
Were broiling for some sacrificial feast;
143
In points like grapestones shaped, of molten gold.
But Tangi, while the tempest raged, was told
That where his daughter might be no one knew—
They feared, upon the Lake in her canoe.
Straightway the stoutest of his clansmen staunch
He sent in search of her their boats to launch;
Then set himself to charm away the Storm;
And it was rare to see the grand old Chief
Now in the haughtiness of fancied power
To cope with Nature in her fiercest hour,
Quick pouring forth wild-ringing chaunt on chaunt
To bid Tawhiri—God of Storms—Avaunt!
Now in a rival storm of rage and grief
Threatening—reproaching—all his stalwart form
Dilating with defiance: outstretched arms
And head thrown back and milk-white fleece of hair,
And bloodshot eyes and dark-blue visage bare
Lit up by fits in the blue lightning's glare!—
So plies he his monotonous rude charms—
So on the Storm his vehement passion vents,
Hoarsely upbraiding the hoarse elements.
VI.
But soon the light Canoe they saw
Come bounding o'er the breaking wave;
There sate, with looks of mingled awe
And wild delight, the Maiden brave!
With rapid change from side to side
A native youth the paddle plied—
A stranger, and his hearty will
Seemed matched with equal strength and skill.
Attentive to his least command
The Maiden grasped with one firm hand
The sheet that held the shortened sail
That strained and tugged beneath the gale,
And with the other strove to bale
Fast as she could the water, still
Threatening the little bark to fill.
Begemmed with spray her dark hair streamed;
Her beauteous cheek no paler seemed
Though rain and spray-drops o'er it teemed,
And all around the lightnings gleamed:
For neither lightning, rain nor spray
Could turn her from her task away.
Come bounding o'er the breaking wave;
There sate, with looks of mingled awe
And wild delight, the Maiden brave!
With rapid change from side to side
A native youth the paddle plied—
A stranger, and his hearty will
Seemed matched with equal strength and skill.
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The Maiden grasped with one firm hand
The sheet that held the shortened sail
That strained and tugged beneath the gale,
And with the other strove to bale
Fast as she could the water, still
Threatening the little bark to fill.
Begemmed with spray her dark hair streamed;
Her beauteous cheek no paler seemed
Though rain and spray-drops o'er it teemed,
And all around the lightnings gleamed:
For neither lightning, rain nor spray
Could turn her from her task away.
Still stood the sail and bending mast,
And they the beach were nearing fast.
Then through the waters' boiling strife
The clansmen rushed at risk of life;
A struggling, swimming, diving crowd,
They seized with acclamations loud
The gunwale of the light canoe;
On either side, a dancing row
Of rough black heads now rising through
Now sunk beneath the foamy snow,
With great triumphant shouts they bore
Canoe and Maiden to the shore.
And they the beach were nearing fast.
Then through the waters' boiling strife
The clansmen rushed at risk of life;
A struggling, swimming, diving crowd,
They seized with acclamations loud
The gunwale of the light canoe;
On either side, a dancing row
Of rough black heads now rising through
Now sunk beneath the foamy snow,
With great triumphant shouts they bore
Canoe and Maiden to the shore.
145
Canto the Third. The Magician.
1. Death of Amo's affianced husband. 2. Dirge for a Chief dishonoured by a peaceful death. 3. Amo released from the Tapu (taboo). 4. The Tapu's power and use. 5. Kangapo. 6. Disgusted that the Chief's death will falsify his predictions. 7. Tries new auguries. 8. Gets answers from spirits—how.
I.
Then Amohia's comrade told how heTo Rotorua's Chief of high degree
From Tapu-ae by Taupo's Lake, his home,
A messenger of great sad news was come.
How he by chance upon the other side
Had in her bark the Maid espied,
And she had offered him a cast across.
And then he told the lamentable loss
Of great Te Rehu—Taupo's Chief, to whom
That Maiden, as they knew so well,
From the first promise of her matchless bloom
Had been betrothed and ‘tapu’—It befel
In this wise. Sometime since, continuous rain
Softening a mountain, it had slipped amain
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A running stream, and all its waters jammed
Between the hills, till thus repressed and choked
Into the porous mound they slowly soaked;
And one fine night when all was still and dim,
The saturate mighty mass had burst away,
And rushing down the vale, while fast asleep
Te Rehu and his nearest kindred lay
Least dreaming such a doom, had swallowed him
And them and their whole village in a deep
And stifling yellow mass of fluent clay,
So overwhelming, sudden, viscous, they
Could neither float, nor rise in it nor swim.
II.
Astonished, shocked at such a tale,
At such a death for so renowned a man,
Low murmurs through the crowding hearers ran:
And when the storm had to the hills retreated,
Though still it rumbled, lumbering heavily
In the back chambers of the sky,
With downcast looks in treble circle seated,
And grief, if false yet truly counterfeited,
The summoned clansmen sung their song of wail.
One, standing in the midst the slow sad chaunt began:—
At such a death for so renowned a man,
Low murmurs through the crowding hearers ran:
And when the storm had to the hills retreated,
Though still it rumbled, lumbering heavily
In the back chambers of the sky,
With downcast looks in treble circle seated,
And grief, if false yet truly counterfeited,
The summoned clansmen sung their song of wail.
One, standing in the midst the slow sad chaunt began:—
“Death, degrading, mournful, gloomy!
Death unfit for song or story,
Death for a dog—a cur—a slave—
Not for the brave!—”
And all took up the chorus harsh and strong,
In perfect time discharging groan on groan,
While rolled a distant thunderpeal along
In kindred and scarce deeper tone:
Death unfit for song or story,
Death for a dog—a cur—a slave—
Not for the brave!—”
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In perfect time discharging groan on groan,
While rolled a distant thunderpeal along
In kindred and scarce deeper tone:
“Death, O Death, how hateful, gloomy!
Death for a dog—a slave—a slave!
Death for a dog—a slave—a slave!
Then rose the single voice in prouder strain,
Just as the lightning flashed again:
Just as the lightning flashed again:
“Had you died the death of glory
On the field of battle gory,
Died the death a chief would choose,
Not this death so sad and gloomy,—
Then with tuft and tassel plumy,
Down of gannet—sea-king's feather,
Gaily-waving, snowy-flecking,
Every deep-red gunwale decking,—
Then a hundred brave canoes
With elated
Warriors freighted,
Like one man their war-chaunt chiming,
Fierce deep cries the paddles timing,
While the paddles' serried rows
Like broad bird's-wings spread and close,
Through the whitening
Waves like lightning
Had been darting all together,
Forward through the foam together,
All in quest of vengeful slaughter
Tearing through the tortured water!”
And from the dusky figures seated round,
With savage satisfaction in the sound—
A stern deep pride with sadness shadowed o'er,
Like volleys fired above a soldier's grave,
Rang out the chorussed thundering groans once more:
On the field of battle gory,
Died the death a chief would choose,
Not this death so sad and gloomy,—
Then with tuft and tassel plumy,
Down of gannet—sea-king's feather,
Gaily-waving, snowy-flecking,
Every deep-red gunwale decking,—
Then a hundred brave canoes
With elated
Warriors freighted,
Like one man their war-chaunt chiming,
Fierce deep cries the paddles timing,
While the paddles' serried rows
Like broad bird's-wings spread and close,
Through the whitening
Waves like lightning
Had been darting all together,
Forward through the foam together,
All in quest of vengeful slaughter
Tearing through the tortured water!”
148
With savage satisfaction in the sound—
A stern deep pride with sadness shadowed o'er,
Like volleys fired above a soldier's grave,
Rang out the chorussed thundering groans once more:
“Ha! a hundred brave canoes—
Crowding, crashing,
Darting, plashing,
Darting, dashing through the wave!
Forward—forward all together,
All in quest of foemen's slaughter,
They had cleft the foamy water
Seeking vengeance for the brave,
For the brave—the brave—the brave!”
Crowding, crashing,
Darting, plashing,
Darting, dashing through the wave!
Forward—forward all together,
All in quest of foemen's slaughter,
They had cleft the foamy water
Seeking vengeance for the brave,
For the brave—the brave—the brave!”
III.
But while with stern staccato notes this songOf simulated sorrow rolled along,
A genuine gladness cheered one secret breast,
One with a grief as genuine was deprest.
To Amohia 'twas pure joy to be
At length from that detested contract free,
Released from nuptials the reluctant maid
On various pretexts had so long delayed.
For the good Chief could ne'er be reconciled
To use coercion with his darling child,
Who by the dreadful ‘tapu’ firmly bound
Moved—a bright creature, consecrate and crowned,
Inviolate and charmed, to all around.
149
IV.
The “tapu” was a fearful spell,Potent as creeds or guards or gold
The power of Priest and Chieftain to uphold.
The terrors of that ever-present Hell
Outdid the threats of distant ones
That faintly flame in far futurity—
As might the roar of pointed guns
A word would on your body bring to bear,
The noise of thunder in the sky.
And never did despotic cunning plan
A fouler system for enslaving man,
Than this mysterious scheme of fear and hate,
The basis of their savage Church and State.
True, the strange custom had its brighter side
When for good ends resistless 'twas applied:
What could compel the masses to combine
Like it, their labour for each grand design—
The great canoe—the long sea-sweeping seine
Or hall for council where the chiefs convene?
Where could true rights a trustier guard procure,
Corruptless and invincible and sure?
Yet most 'twas used as stonghold and as stay
For the Aristocrats' and Hierarchs' sway;
For though swift-gathering relative and friend
Would prompt upon a culprit's tribe descend
And, plundering by strict rule with much ado,
Avenge each minor breach of this “taboo,”
Yet, let but rank or priesthood be profaned,
A direr doom the wretch who sinned sustained,
150
Material penance, penalties or pains.
No high divinity that hedges kings
Could with this sheltering deviltry compare,
Or forge for tyranny a subtler yoke.
For chief and Priest at will or whim could dower
Sticks—stones—most treasured or most trivial things
With deadliest excommunicative power:
And whoso touched them and the “tapu” broke
Became anathema—accursed and banned—
Infected and infectious; with a pang
Of livelier terror shrunk from—shunned—than e'er
Plague-spotted patient—canine madness—fang
Of rattle-snake or cobra: Fiends were there
To torture them; obedient, at the Chief's command.
The “Wairua,” Spirits of the myriad dead,—
And all the other invisible Spirits dread,
All mystic powers that fill the Earth and Air,
The “Atua,”—waited but a hint from him
To dart into their victim—waste and tear
His stricken vitals, cankering life and limb.
Had not the boldest who from want of heed
Some solemn “tapu” had infringed, been known
When conscious of the sacrilegious deed,
To die outright from horrible fear alone?—
So well these savage Lords had learned
How nature's mystic terror might be turned
To means their own dominion to increase.
Unseen executors of their caprice,
Agents impalpable upheld their cause;
Departed Spirits were their dumb Police,
And Ghosts enforced their lightest Laws.
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V.
But he whose grief was most sincere
The news of that unwonted death to hear,
Was Kangapo the “Tóhunga”—a Priest
And fell Magician famous far and near;
A Thaumaturge regarded with more fear
Than any living or than most deceased.
Men whispered that his very body swarmed
(Crammed as a war-canoe with warriors armed)
With evil spirits rustling thick
As blue-flies buzzing in a wayside corse:
And some more credulous would trembling tell
How when demoniac inspiration quick
And strong, in frenzy and full force
Rushed on him (it was vouched for well)
The grass would wither where his shadow fell;
Or, were the sliding shutter of his door
Just then left open, by the river side,
Such deadly emanations would outpour,
Mere strangers chancing in canoes to glide
Beneath the house, had stiffened there and died.
The news of that unwonted death to hear,
Was Kangapo the “Tóhunga”—a Priest
And fell Magician famous far and near;
A Thaumaturge regarded with more fear
Than any living or than most deceased.
Men whispered that his very body swarmed
(Crammed as a war-canoe with warriors armed)
With evil spirits rustling thick
As blue-flies buzzing in a wayside corse:
And some more credulous would trembling tell
How when demoniac inspiration quick
And strong, in frenzy and full force
Rushed on him (it was vouched for well)
The grass would wither where his shadow fell;
Or, were the sliding shutter of his door
Just then left open, by the river side,
Such deadly emanations would outpour,
Mere strangers chancing in canoes to glide
Beneath the house, had stiffened there and died.
These tales were Kangapo's delight and pride.
And yet his mien that dread renown belied;
So calm and mild; his eyes deepset and dark
Abstacted still and unobservant seemed;
But those who dared to watch him long would mark
How those dim eyes would on a sudden shift
And glitter like a lizard's; then again
Fall still and calm; and yet that glance so swift
Seemed quite enough, as rapidly it gleamed,
To single out and give his scheming brain
All they could closely hide as clearly see.
His voice was gentle too, and low, and sweet;
So men compared him to the tutu-tree,
Whose luscious purple clusters hang so free
And tempting, though with hidden seeds replete
That numb with deadly poison all who eat.
And then his pace was stealthy, noiseless, soft,
So that a group of talking people oft
Turned round and found him, none knew how or whence,
Close by them, with his chilling influence:
As that great wingless loathsome locust bare,
That scoops from rotting trees his pithy fare,
With elephantine head and horny jaws
And prickly high-propped legs—is sometimes found
Upon your limbs or clothes, in sluggish pause,
Inside the house; though none upon the ground
Have marked him crawling slow from his retreat,
The fire-logs, when dislodged by growing heat.
And yet his mien that dread renown belied;
So calm and mild; his eyes deepset and dark
Abstacted still and unobservant seemed;
But those who dared to watch him long would mark
How those dim eyes would on a sudden shift
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Fall still and calm; and yet that glance so swift
Seemed quite enough, as rapidly it gleamed,
To single out and give his scheming brain
All they could closely hide as clearly see.
His voice was gentle too, and low, and sweet;
So men compared him to the tutu-tree,
Whose luscious purple clusters hang so free
And tempting, though with hidden seeds replete
That numb with deadly poison all who eat.
And then his pace was stealthy, noiseless, soft,
So that a group of talking people oft
Turned round and found him, none knew how or whence,
Close by them, with his chilling influence:
As that great wingless loathsome locust bare,
That scoops from rotting trees his pithy fare,
With elephantine head and horny jaws
And prickly high-propped legs—is sometimes found
Upon your limbs or clothes, in sluggish pause,
Inside the house; though none upon the ground
Have marked him crawling slow from his retreat,
The fire-logs, when dislodged by growing heat.
VI.
But Kangapo had reason to bewail;For had he not a hundred times foretold
That should those Western Tribes his tribe assail,
Those famed Waikáto, foemen from of old,
Stout Tangi in the contest should prevail?
And whence derived he confidence to make
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'Twas from the doubled strength his tribe he knew
Would gain from an alliance close and true
With the brave borderers of the Central Lake.
And what inducement could be found so strong
To that alliance as the union, long
Desired and schemed for, and as long delayed,
Of Taupo's Chief with this surpassing maid?
But now his plans were cut up, branch and root:
And he must task his plotting wits again
To find some other project to maintain
The safety of his tribe—his own repute.
For if he failed so notably, a stain
Would on his fame indelibly remain.
One thing was clear; he must not lose this lure,
This bait, some splendid Kingfish to secure
Among the Chiefs,—this matchless girl, on whom
Himself, o'ermastered by her beauty's bloom
Had sometimes cast a longing eye, in vain;
For not his utmost art could passage gain
Even to the threshold of her fair regard;
His calm, insidious, slow addresses barred
Their own access: her very flesh would creep
Antipathetic, shrinking to its ward
Instinctive, from his flatteries sly and deep.
VII.
So anxious now his auguries he pliedFor some forecast of fate his course to guide.
First, by the solitary shore, he drove
His gods into the ground: each god a stick
154
With fillet round the neck of feathers red;
Then to each idol he attached a string;
And in monotonous accents high and quick
His incantations wild began to sing.
But still the impatient patient Sorcerer strove
With frequent jerks to make it yield a sign
Whence might be drawn an omen of success:
Nor this so difficult as you divine,
Nor need the gift his Atua much distress.
The slightest hint a Priest for answer took;
Let but a grass-green parrakeet alight
To pluck from some wild coffee-bush in sight,
And nibble with his little moving hook,
The scarlet berries; let some kingfisher
Slip darting from the post whose summit grey
He crowned—a piece of it—the live-long day—
Long bill protruding from his shoulders high,
Watching the lake with sleepy-vigilant eye—
Looking so torpid and so loath to stir,
Till that faint silver twinkle he descry;
Let, gold-cuirassed, some hard ichneumon-fly
Drag with fierce efforts to its crevice nigh
A velvet-striped big spider, sore distrest,
Struggling in vain and doomed to be the nest
And food of that wasp-tyrant's worm new-hatched;
Nay, less significant the sign might be
For which the keen-eyed Sorcerer sung and watched;
A passing cloud—a falling leaf—the key
Might offer to unlock the mystery,
Which with his wishes surely would be matched.
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VIII.
Nor could our Augur set his mind at ease
With simple divinations such as these:
And he was almost tempted to invoke
The Spirits of the Dead who sometimes spoke
Through him, the Arch-Magician and Adept;
Half tempted in his own case to accept
Answers his own ventriloquism feigned;
Ready to square his faith to his desire,
And half believe supernal spirits deigned
To prompt his organs and his speech inspire:—
Could nothing, think you, less than mind unsound
Sensation with volition thus confound?—
But this he chose another Priest to try.
So in their midnight haunted chamber they
Summoned the dead, and drank in mournfully
What the faint hollow voices seemed to say;
Now like the nightwind through the crannied roof
In longdrawn whistling whisper sighing by,
Swelling and sinking, near and then aloof;
Now melancholy murmuring underground,
Then dying off up in the starry sky.
With simple divinations such as these:
And he was almost tempted to invoke
The Spirits of the Dead who sometimes spoke
Through him, the Arch-Magician and Adept;
Half tempted in his own case to accept
Answers his own ventriloquism feigned;
Ready to square his faith to his desire,
And half believe supernal spirits deigned
To prompt his organs and his speech inspire:—
Could nothing, think you, less than mind unsound
Sensation with volition thus confound?—
But this he chose another Priest to try.
So in their midnight haunted chamber they
Summoned the dead, and drank in mournfully
What the faint hollow voices seemed to say;
Now like the nightwind through the crannied roof
In longdrawn whistling whisper sighing by,
Swelling and sinking, near and then aloof;
Now melancholy murmuring underground,
Then dying off up in the starry sky.
Such the success impostors still achieve;
Such Nature's final Nemesis for all
Who teach to others what they half believe,
To keep them fast in Superstition's thrall.
From such a doom dreaming their own reprieve,
Into the pits themselves have dug they fall;
Their own deceptions do themselves deceive.
Such Nature's final Nemesis for all
Who teach to others what they half believe,
To keep them fast in Superstition's thrall.
From such a doom dreaming their own reprieve,
Into the pits themselves have dug they fall;
Their own deceptions do themselves deceive.
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Canto the Fourth. A Woodland Jaunt.
1. A new Nausicaa. Poi or ball-play. 2. Ranolf's sudden visit. 3. Tangi's greeting. 4. A party to the mainland. Scenery. 5. Native superstitions. All Nature informed with Spirits. 6. Supernatural Legends. Man's ideas of ‘God’ grow with his growth. 7. Theirs of the rudest kind. Maui: Tinirau and his pet whale: Pitaka the Dragon-slayer: Hatu, the boy stolen by a witch-giantess. 8. Miroa's tale of the ‘Maid-in-the-Moon.’
I.
With merry laughter rang the airAnd feminine soft voices sweet;
And acclamations here and there
Of loud delight at skill more rare,
Some happy hit or dexterous feat;
And little shrieks at failing luck,
The baffled aim, the striker struck;
As Amohia on the ground
Amid her damsels, scarlet-crowned
With kowhai-flowers, a lively ring
Playing at ‘poi,’ sent flying round
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And worked with vary-coloured threads,
And loosely hung with dangling string
Made fast above their rich-tressed heads—
Fast to a single lightsome yew,
One lone totára-tree that grew
Beneath the hillside rising high
Mid rocks and flowering shrubs. Hard by
A little summer-dwelling peeped
Deep-red, from foliage o'er it heaped
Deep-green and lustrous—trees that bore
In tiny flowers their promised store,
Large berries of autumnal gold.
Verandah-pillars, barge-boards broad,
And balcony and balustrade,
All rough and crusted with a load
Of carved adornment quaint and bold—
Concentric fret or face grotesque
In rich red-ochred arabesque
Relieved with snow-white touches—showed
Gaily against that glittering shade,
The thick karákas' varnished green.
This cheerful cot, when days were hot,
With its interior cool and clean,—
Its floor, for fragrant orange-scent
With faint tawhíri-leaves besprent;
Its roof, and walls, so neatly lined
(Between pilasters white and red)
With tall pale yellow reeds close-laid
And delicately intertwined
And diamond-laced with sable braid
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By that thick-tufted parasite
Which with its fleshy blossom-bracts
The native as a fruit attracts—
This cot was Amo's chief delight:
And now while yet the day was new,
And scarce the sun had dried the dew,
She and her handmaids sported there.
Quick hand and eye they each and all
Displayed, as, arms and shoulders bare
From side to side they whisked the ball:
Nor is much need our lay declare
How she, the Mistress-Maid, in face
And form superb, and waving grace
Of lithe elastic limb, whene'er
The more erratic ball she tossed
Or caught—or proud with easy air
Regained her balance seeming lost,
Outshone them all beyond compare.
II.
But see! at once the game is stopped,
Each mantle, in its ardour dropped,
Snatched quickly up, at once replaced:
In coy confusion, giggling haste,
Up start the girls of lower grade,
As in his sailor-garb arrayed,
Emerging from a neighbouring patch
Of pinky-tasselled milky maize,
A glimpse of Ranolf's form they catch
And, pausing, he the game surveys.
But Amohia calmly rose
With courteous mien and gentle pride;
A moment's blush she could not hide,
Within her eyes a moment's light,
Upon their lids a tremor slight,
Alone lent import to the greeting
She gave to him whose image bright
Had left, since that first forest-meeting
Her busy fancy no repose.
Each mantle, in its ardour dropped,
Snatched quickly up, at once replaced:
In coy confusion, giggling haste,
Up start the girls of lower grade,
As in his sailor-garb arrayed,
Emerging from a neighbouring patch
Of pinky-tasselled milky maize,
A glimpse of Ranolf's form they catch
And, pausing, he the game surveys.
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With courteous mien and gentle pride;
A moment's blush she could not hide,
Within her eyes a moment's light,
Upon their lids a tremor slight,
Alone lent import to the greeting
She gave to him whose image bright
Had left, since that first forest-meeting
Her busy fancy no repose.
The youth had come prepared to stay
With presents and persuasive speech
Results he feared that luckless day
Might lead to; for the violence shown
By his companions to atone:
The ‘Sounding Sea's’ just ire appease,
And heal if such there were, the breach
Between his former friends and these.
But as they scaled the steep ascent
Up to the village rampart-pent,
With high embankments, ditches wide
And fighting-stages fortified;
And passed the crooked entrance made
Through double post and palisade
With crossing withies braced and tied,
The prudent Amo gave her guest
A hint to let the matter rest;
And then he learnt how she had laid
Injunction on her babbling maid
To hold her peace; and strange to tell
The girl had kept the secret well.
With presents and persuasive speech
Results he feared that luckless day
Might lead to; for the violence shown
By his companions to atone:
The ‘Sounding Sea's’ just ire appease,
And heal if such there were, the breach
Between his former friends and these.
But as they scaled the steep ascent
Up to the village rampart-pent,
With high embankments, ditches wide
And fighting-stages fortified;
And passed the crooked entrance made
Through double post and palisade
With crossing withies braced and tied,
The prudent Amo gave her guest
A hint to let the matter rest;
And then he learnt how she had laid
Injunction on her babbling maid
To hold her peace; and strange to tell
The girl had kept the secret well.
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III.
With blunt good-humoured haughtiness,A sturdy, proud and easy air
Of sway unquestioned, frank no less,
Did Tangi-Möana declare
In briefest phrase how glad was he
The stranger at his place to see.
And then, the proffered food declined,
To pipes and parley he resigned
Himself, in sunshine while they basked;
And many things it sorely tasked
The hoary chief, the youthful friend,
To illustrate, or comprehend,
Attentive heard, acutely asked;
About the white man's home and land,
Why Ranolf left it, yet so young;—
The tribes he knew—had dwelt among;
The seaward chiefs and what they planned;
Who were their friends and foes—and most
The guns and powder they could boast,
And all the wealth at their command
From ships that trafficked on the coast.
IV.
Their meeting over, Ranolf strolled
About the flat where gardens gay
Bright in the morning sunbeams lay,
With large-leaved roots and basking fruits
That lolled on beds weedfree and clean
As fairies had the gardeners been.
Then with the younger folk, a few
By Amo led, and one or two
Most brisk or curious of the old,
Crossed, paddling slow a large canoe,
The gleaming Lake's unrippled floor
To woody Nongotáha's shore,
To wing the hours of sultrier heat
With converse in a cool retreat.
A hillside hollow—its sun-parched
And slippery grass of golden hue,
Green, like the half-ripe orange, grew
Where feathery locust-trees o'erarched
A little plot, an airy spot
Their yellow-blossomed branches laid
In luxury of emerald shade.
About the flat where gardens gay
Bright in the morning sunbeams lay,
With large-leaved roots and basking fruits
That lolled on beds weedfree and clean
As fairies had the gardeners been.
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By Amo led, and one or two
Most brisk or curious of the old,
Crossed, paddling slow a large canoe,
The gleaming Lake's unrippled floor
To woody Nongotáha's shore,
To wing the hours of sultrier heat
With converse in a cool retreat.
A hillside hollow—its sun-parched
And slippery grass of golden hue,
Green, like the half-ripe orange, grew
Where feathery locust-trees o'erarched
A little plot, an airy spot
Their yellow-blossomed branches laid
In luxury of emerald shade.
There Ranolf flung him down, at rest,
With that expansion of the breast
Exultant—all that unreprest
Abandonment to glad emotion—
So fair a clime, a life so free,
With health and strength and buoyancy
Of spirit in supreme degree,—
And more than all, and all enhancing,
That blooming Child of wood and wild
With shadowy hair and radiant face,
That glossy glancing thing of grace
With eyes in liquid splendour dancing,
Or calm, as if from some high place
Of bliss above this earthly scene
Her soul looked forth with light serene
No time could quench, no sorrow dim,—
Might well excite, excuse in him,
A careless castaway of Ocean.
With that expansion of the breast
Exultant—all that unreprest
Abandonment to glad emotion—
So fair a clime, a life so free,
With health and strength and buoyancy
Of spirit in supreme degree,—
And more than all, and all enhancing,
That blooming Child of wood and wild
With shadowy hair and radiant face,
That glossy glancing thing of grace
With eyes in liquid splendour dancing,
Or calm, as if from some high place
Of bliss above this earthly scene
Her soul looked forth with light serene
162
Might well excite, excuse in him,
A careless castaway of Ocean.
Before him lay no water, say
A hollow Sky inverted—blue,
With flecks of snowy sunlit flue,
And mountains hung in crystal air
With peaks above and peaks below
Responsive,—every feature fair
Reversed, in that transparent glow
Deep mirrored; every ferny spur,
Each puckered slope, and wrinkle sleek
That creased their glossy forest-fur,
Sure at the water's edge to meet
Its upward-running counterfeit,
Exact as roseate streak for streak
Some opened Venus-shell displays,
Bivalve with answering spots and rays.
Far round were seen, o'er thicket green,
By sandy shore, in darksome glen,
Cloud-jets of steam whose snowy gleam,
But that they moved not, you would deem
The smoke of ambushed riflemen;
But peaceful these, nor passed away
For wind or hot refulgent day.
White, bright, and still, o'er wild and wood,
Like new-alighted Sprites they stood,
Pure in the brilliant breathlessness:
For breathless seemed the earth and sky
Real and reflected; none the less
Because at times there wandered by
Over the sun-bathed greenery
A soft air, lifting like a sigh
Some tree-fern's fan, as if in sleep
It stirred in the noon-stillness deep,
Then sank in drowsy trance profound;
That faint distress the only sign
Of life o'er all the glorious sweep
Of verdure streaming down the steep.
So hushed the deep noon-glow around,
So splendour-bathed that vault divine,
The atmosphere so subtle-clear
'Twas rapture but to breathe it!—well
Might these have made more sober, staid,
Or pensive souls a moment fear
To break the soft luxurious spell,
The dreamy charm that wrapt the scene,
With utterance even the most serene.
A hollow Sky inverted—blue,
With flecks of snowy sunlit flue,
And mountains hung in crystal air
With peaks above and peaks below
Responsive,—every feature fair
Reversed, in that transparent glow
Deep mirrored; every ferny spur,
Each puckered slope, and wrinkle sleek
That creased their glossy forest-fur,
Sure at the water's edge to meet
Its upward-running counterfeit,
Exact as roseate streak for streak
Some opened Venus-shell displays,
Bivalve with answering spots and rays.
Far round were seen, o'er thicket green,
By sandy shore, in darksome glen,
Cloud-jets of steam whose snowy gleam,
But that they moved not, you would deem
The smoke of ambushed riflemen;
But peaceful these, nor passed away
For wind or hot refulgent day.
White, bright, and still, o'er wild and wood,
Like new-alighted Sprites they stood,
Pure in the brilliant breathlessness:
For breathless seemed the earth and sky
Real and reflected; none the less
Because at times there wandered by
Over the sun-bathed greenery
163
Some tree-fern's fan, as if in sleep
It stirred in the noon-stillness deep,
Then sank in drowsy trance profound;
That faint distress the only sign
Of life o'er all the glorious sweep
Of verdure streaming down the steep.
So hushed the deep noon-glow around,
So splendour-bathed that vault divine,
The atmosphere so subtle-clear
'Twas rapture but to breathe it!—well
Might these have made more sober, staid,
Or pensive souls a moment fear
To break the soft luxurious spell,
The dreamy charm that wrapt the scene,
With utterance even the most serene.
V.
But Life with too much force and heatIn these young hearts impetuous beat
For Silence; so the livelong day
The stream of converse grave or gay
From springs redundant flowed alway.
Their superstitions, legends, lays,
Could endless disquisitions raise;
And our Adventurer, still inclining,
Though neither sad nor very serious,
To all that bore on Man's mysterious
Links with the Life there's no divining—
Learnt how for them, invisible throngs
Of Spirits roamed all visible Space:
All Nature was a human Face—
164
And teachings for their priests to trace,
Excite, evoke with charms and songs:
All Matter was all symbol—fraught
With Love and Hate—with Will and Thought.
Within a Man's own frame—without,
Above, below, and all about,
Nothing beyond his will that stirred,—
His limbs in dreaming, beast or bird,
Insect or thing inanimate,
But 'twas oracular of Fate:
The wild bird's song, the wild dog's bark,
Were mystic omens, bright or dark;
A leaf could wave, a breeze could blow
Intelligence of weal or woe;
Let but the wind creep through your lifted hair,
Some God was present there;
And if a rainbow overspanned
A hostile band,
As it to battle rushed,
Already 'twas as good as crushed.
VI.
And then their legends—once again
Recastings from the ancient mould;
Gods, demigods and heroes old
Of giant bulk and dwarfish brain.
Greek, Gothic, Polynesian—all
Primeval races on a train
Of like ideas, conceptions, fall;
Their supernatural Beings still
Are but themselves in ways and will;
And still the Superhuman race
Keeps with the human steady pace;
What Man would be—what Man has been,
Through magnifying medium seen
Still makes his God or Gods that grow
With his Soul's growth—its reflex show
By grand Imagination's glass
Dilated; its best thoughts—the mass
Of noblest feelings that exist—
Projected with expanding rays
Upon Eternity's dim haze,
Like Brocken Shadows on the mist.
Recastings from the ancient mould;
Gods, demigods and heroes old
Of giant bulk and dwarfish brain.
Greek, Gothic, Polynesian—all
Primeval races on a train
Of like ideas, conceptions, fall;
Their supernatural Beings still
Are but themselves in ways and will;
165
Keeps with the human steady pace;
What Man would be—what Man has been,
Through magnifying medium seen
Still makes his God or Gods that grow
With his Soul's growth—its reflex show
By grand Imagination's glass
Dilated; its best thoughts—the mass
Of noblest feelings that exist—
Projected with expanding rays
Upon Eternity's dim haze,
Like Brocken Shadows on the mist.
And was it not so planned to give
Mankind a fit provocative,
At every stage from birth to age,
The best devised to speed the Soul
Towards Adoration's utmost goal?
To guide his infancy and youth,
Too weak to see the summits fair,
Up an ascending mountain-stair
To highest hidden peaks of Truth?
And so Religion's self endow
With that continuous life and glow
Discovery lends, though painful, slow;
That interest ever fresh and warm
Which Science boasts her greatest charm?
Though slow indeed Religion's rise
Even to a glimpse of purer skies;
Though foul and stagnant if you will
The fens and swamps that clog her still.
Mankind a fit provocative,
At every stage from birth to age,
The best devised to speed the Soul
Towards Adoration's utmost goal?
To guide his infancy and youth,
Too weak to see the summits fair,
Up an ascending mountain-stair
To highest hidden peaks of Truth?
And so Religion's self endow
With that continuous life and glow
Discovery lends, though painful, slow;
That interest ever fresh and warm
Which Science boasts her greatest charm?
Though slow indeed Religion's rise
Even to a glimpse of purer skies;
Though foul and stagnant if you will
The fens and swamps that clog her still.
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VII.
But here the legendary loreThe stamp of earliest ages bore;
The stories told were wild and rude,
Insipid mostly, pointless, crude:
The simple guile, the childish wile,
With savage deeds of blood and ire,
And treacheries dull for vengeance dire;
Gods, giants, men, all blood-imbrued.
Uncouth the wondrous feats rehearsed,
With lighter fancies interspersed:
Recounted frankly, best and worst,
Since none were met with sneer or scoff:
—How Maui fished these Isles up first,
And Kupé chipped the islets off.
—How Tinirau—vain Chief! the same
Who broad transparent pools outlaid
Of water, which the mirrors made
Where he his beauteous shape surveyed,
Was yet of giant power to tame
The great Leviathan he kept,
A plaything and a pet, who came,
Obedient from his boundless home;
Through sinking hill and swirling trough
Of Ocean, black through snowy foam,
With ponderous swiftness crashing swept,
Whene'er he summoned him by name;
Or rolling over, at a sign
From him, would smash the level brine
Into great clouds of powdery spray,
With thunder-slaps heard miles away.
167
Out of Earth's bowels by main strength,
Out of his mountain-dungeon fell,
Like periwinkle from its shell,
The bulkiest time-worn Taniwha;
Undaunted by his tortuous length
Of notched and scaly back—his jaw
Wide yawning, and obscenest maw
With bones and greenstone trinkets filled,
And weapons of his swallowed prey—
Men, women, children, countless killed
By this, of ancient tale and lay
The wingless dragon—rather say
Iguanodon or Lizard vast,
Some caverned monster left the last
Memento of a world bygone
Earth's grinding changes had o'erthrown,
Downliving with still lessening powers
Into this foreign world of ours.
—Then, too, how Márutúa drew
His dragnets round a hostile crew,
The thousand men he snared and slew—
Beguiled to feast upon the strand
And lend their seeming friend a hand
In some great fishing-bout he planned.
—How Hátu-pátu, as he lay
Couched in a rimu-tree one day,
Still as a tufted parasite,
A mere excrescence, not to fright
The birds that would close by alight,
Nor mark his lithe and bending spear
168
Creep slowly as a thing that grew,
Until with sudden thrust and true
The noiseless weapon pierced them through—
Himself was quite unconscious too,
As thus he lay like one spell-bound,
What long-curved claws were slowly stealing round
The stem—or cautiously withdrew—
Slowly retracted—then again protruded
Amid the leafy shadows playing
Upon the sunny-chequered trunk,
Noiseless as they and unbetraying
The lank and gaunt Witch-giantess
That wholly hid, behind it slunk;
Until he found himself, the watcher,
Grim-clutched, and not the poor fly-catcher;
Then in her cavern-home secluded
Was kept in cruel-kind duresse
To be as best he might, moreover,
That Patu-paere's pet and lover!
VIII.
And next, fair Amo's handmaid—she
Whose gaze of wondering curious glee
Would Ranolf's gestures—looks—pursue,
So pleasant seemed they, strange and new;
Who, if his lively, joyous glance
Alit upon the little maid,
Would start half-back, as if afraid
And half-disposed to run away,
With look averted though so gay,
And face half-hidden, and a play
Of giggling blushes, bright and shy;
Then with brown eyes—that all the day
Would else with mirth and mischief dance,
Keeping a sheltering friend close by,
Would snatch a serious look askance,
As quickly turned aside again
Lest she be caught in that assay;—
All with an artless sympathy,
An interest undisguised and plain—
Such fresh unconscious coquetry!
Though little noticed by the rest
Because with fancies of their own,
Thoughts, feelings hitherto unknown,
Too much amused and prepossest;—
This shy and saucy Miroa told,
With fluttering breath, slight-heaving breast,
Looking at any but the guest
To whom her story was addrest—
How merry Rona, reckless, bold,
Wetting one evening in a stream
The leaves to make her oven steam,
Cursed the fair innocent Moon aloud,
Because she hid behind a cloud,
And Rona, when the light was gone,
Struck her foot against a stone;
And how the solemn Moon in anger came
Broadening and reddening down, and wound
Her bright entangling beams around
The affrighted Maid in vain resisting,
Like a vast Cuttlefish around her twisting
A hundred writhing trunks of chilly flame;
Then rose with basket, Maid and all,
And fixed them in her amber ball;
“And this is fact for certain—doubt who will,
Wait only till the moon shall fill
Her horns—there's Rona with her basket still!”
Whose gaze of wondering curious glee
Would Ranolf's gestures—looks—pursue,
So pleasant seemed they, strange and new;
Who, if his lively, joyous glance
Alit upon the little maid,
Would start half-back, as if afraid
And half-disposed to run away,
169
And face half-hidden, and a play
Of giggling blushes, bright and shy;
Then with brown eyes—that all the day
Would else with mirth and mischief dance,
Keeping a sheltering friend close by,
Would snatch a serious look askance,
As quickly turned aside again
Lest she be caught in that assay;—
All with an artless sympathy,
An interest undisguised and plain—
Such fresh unconscious coquetry!
Though little noticed by the rest
Because with fancies of their own,
Thoughts, feelings hitherto unknown,
Too much amused and prepossest;—
This shy and saucy Miroa told,
With fluttering breath, slight-heaving breast,
Looking at any but the guest
To whom her story was addrest—
How merry Rona, reckless, bold,
Wetting one evening in a stream
The leaves to make her oven steam,
Cursed the fair innocent Moon aloud,
Because she hid behind a cloud,
And Rona, when the light was gone,
Struck her foot against a stone;
And how the solemn Moon in anger came
Broadening and reddening down, and wound
Her bright entangling beams around
The affrighted Maid in vain resisting,
Like a vast Cuttlefish around her twisting
A hundred writhing trunks of chilly flame;
170
And fixed them in her amber ball;
“And this is fact for certain—doubt who will,
Wait only till the moon shall fill
Her horns—there's Rona with her basket still!”
“A pretty fancy, pretty one!”
Said Ranolf when the tale was done;
“Come here, my child—let me repay
Your story,—it will suit your hair
This ribbon, though not half so gay,
So beauteous as the wreath you wear.”
And as the laughing girls beside,
Caught, pushed her forward, held her there,
The ribbon round her head he tied,
For some such purpose brought; while she
A-tremble with delighted pride,
With pettish mock reproaches, aimed
At them, not him, seemed, half-ashamed,
Half-angry, struggling to get free.
Said Ranolf when the tale was done;
“Come here, my child—let me repay
Your story,—it will suit your hair
This ribbon, though not half so gay,
So beauteous as the wreath you wear.”
And as the laughing girls beside,
Caught, pushed her forward, held her there,
The ribbon round her head he tied,
For some such purpose brought; while she
A-tremble with delighted pride,
With pettish mock reproaches, aimed
At them, not him, seemed, half-ashamed,
Half-angry, struggling to get free.
171
Canto the Fifth. The Legend of Tawhaki.
1. Amo tells the Legend of Tawhaki (the second chief Hero-God; Maui being the first). Creatures of the slime killed by Light. 2. To Ranolf it typifies Truth destroying superstitious creeds. 3. Hapae, a skyborn winged damsel, loves and leaves Tawhaki. 4. Seeking her he ascends to heaven by a spider-thread. Finds her and becomes a God. 5. Ranolf makes Hapae, Old Philosophy with its Immortal Hope, to be recovered by Science dealing with the sources of the physical. 6. Noblest discoveries psychical. 7. What the myth really indicates.
I.
Then Amohia, tapping Ranolf's arm,
Said, “Listen, Pakeha!”—and with lifted hand,
Rounding—Enchantress-wise
When double soul she throws into a charm—
The solemn archness of her great black eyes,
Deeplighted like a well,
An ancient legend she began to tell
Of one God-hero of the land,
Of which our faithful lay presents
Precisely the main incidents:
Adorning freely everywhere
The better its intents to reach,
The language so condensed and bare,
Those clotted rudiments of speech:
Said, “Listen, Pakeha!”—and with lifted hand,
Rounding—Enchantress-wise
When double soul she throws into a charm—
The solemn archness of her great black eyes,
Deeplighted like a well,
An ancient legend she began to tell
Of one God-hero of the land,
Of which our faithful lay presents
Precisely the main incidents:
172
The better its intents to reach,
The language so condensed and bare,
Those clotted rudiments of speech:
“Once a race, the Pona-turi—in the oozy depths of Ocean,
Fierce, uncouth, in gloomy glory, lived where light is none, nor motion.
More than anything created, Light, their bane, their death, they hated;
So for Night they ever waited ere ashore they seal-like clambered
To their house Manáwa-tanë—their great mansion lofty chambered;
Whence, if e'er a windy Moon had caught them, you would see them hieing
Homeward—sable shapes beneath the crisping silver floating, flying,
Swift as scattered clouds on high their snowy courses gaily plying.
Fierce, uncouth, in gloomy glory, lived where light is none, nor motion.
More than anything created, Light, their bane, their death, they hated;
So for Night they ever waited ere ashore they seal-like clambered
To their house Manáwa-tanë—their great mansion lofty chambered;
Whence, if e'er a windy Moon had caught them, you would see them hieing
Homeward—sable shapes beneath the crisping silver floating, flying,
Swift as scattered clouds on high their snowy courses gaily plying.
“Young Tawháki, well he knew them—did they not his Father mangle?
Hang his fleshless bones, a scarecrow, ghastly from their roof to dangle?
Keep his Mother too, a slave, each day to give them timely warning
Ere dark Sky from Earth uplifting left the first gold gap of morning?
Hang his fleshless bones, a scarecrow, ghastly from their roof to dangle?
Keep his Mother too, a slave, each day to give them timely warning
Ere dark Sky from Earth uplifting left the first gold gap of morning?
“Vengeance with his Mother then he plotted. So by daylight hiding
In their houseroof-thatch he couched, his slimy foes' arrival biding.
Darkness comes; they land in swarms; their spacious House they crowd and cumber;
Revel through the midnight reckless; drop at last in weary slumber.
Like the distant Ocean's roaring sinks and swells the mighty snoring.—
Out then steals Tawháki chuckling; long ere day begins to brighten,
Stops up every chink in doorway, window, that could let the light in:
And the snoring goes on roaring; or if any Sleeper yawning
Turned him restless, thinking, ‘Surely it must now be near the dawning,’
Growling, ‘Slave, is daylight breaking? are you watching, are you waking?’
Still the Mother answered blandly, ‘Fear not, I will give you warning—
Sleep, O sleep, my Pona-turi—there are yet no streaks of morning!’
In their houseroof-thatch he couched, his slimy foes' arrival biding.
173
Revel through the midnight reckless; drop at last in weary slumber.
Like the distant Ocean's roaring sinks and swells the mighty snoring.—
Out then steals Tawháki chuckling; long ere day begins to brighten,
Stops up every chink in doorway, window, that could let the light in:
And the snoring goes on roaring; or if any Sleeper yawning
Turned him restless, thinking, ‘Surely it must now be near the dawning,’
Growling, ‘Slave, is daylight breaking? are you watching, are you waking?’
Still the Mother answered blandly, ‘Fear not, I will give you warning—
Sleep, O sleep, my Pona-turi—there are yet no streaks of morning!’
“So the snoring goes on roaring. Now above the mountains dewy,
High the splendour-God careers it—great Te Ra, the Tama Nui.
Sudden cries Tawháki's Mother, ‘Open doors and windows quickly!
Every stop-gap tear out, clear out! On them pour the sunbeams thickly!’
Through the darksome Mansion—through and through those Sons of Darkness streaming
Flash the spear-flights of the Day-God—deadly-silent—golden-gleaming!
Down they go, the Pona-turi! vain their struggles, yells and fury!
Like dead heaps of fishes stranded by the Storm-spray, gaping—staring—
Stiffened,—so, astonished, helpless, lay they in the sunbeams glaring:
Fast as shrink upon the shelly beach, those tide-left discs of jelly;
Fast as leathery fungus-balls in yellow dust-clouds fuming fly off,
So they shrink, they fade, they wither, so those Imps of Darkness die off!—”
High the splendour-God careers it—great Te Ra, the Tama Nui.
Sudden cries Tawháki's Mother, ‘Open doors and windows quickly!
Every stop-gap tear out, clear out! On them pour the sunbeams thickly!’
Through the darksome Mansion—through and through those Sons of Darkness streaming
174
Down they go, the Pona-turi! vain their struggles, yells and fury!
Like dead heaps of fishes stranded by the Storm-spray, gaping—staring—
Stiffened,—so, astonished, helpless, lay they in the sunbeams glaring:
Fast as shrink upon the shelly beach, those tide-left discs of jelly;
Fast as leathery fungus-balls in yellow dust-clouds fuming fly off,
So they shrink, they fade, they wither, so those Imps of Darkness die off!—”
II.
“Manáwa-tanë! ‘breath or life
Of Man’—no doubt; a race at strife
With Light!—were this a German tale,
Not artless Maori, who could fail
To hit its sense, extract its pith,
So pregnant, palpable a Myth!”
Thought Ranolf listening. “Darkness breeds
A swarm of superstitious creeds
That crush Man's Spirit till it bleeds;
His Father—God! yes, him they clearly
A terror make, a scarecrow merely,
High up—unmoved—dry bones or worse
To his abandoned Universe.
His Mother, Earth—her wealth—her worth—
Her schools—thrones—churches—mind and might—
Enslaved so long, set day and night
To warn and war against the Light,—
Free Thought, the beautiful, the bright!
Whose Sons not seldom from their eyes
Shut out, dissemble and disguise
Its full results—half-veil its rays
(Till they shall gather to a blaze?)
And fondly feign they nurse no seeds
Of death to all those narrow creeds.
Howe'er that be, the Sun will soar!
His foes may slumber, rave, or roar—
Yet Dayspring spreads o'er sea and shore;
And now, even now, for all their din,
The killing Light is streaming in!—
But I attend. Bright-Eyes, proceed;
Your Myth seems one who runs may read!”
Of Man’—no doubt; a race at strife
With Light!—were this a German tale,
Not artless Maori, who could fail
To hit its sense, extract its pith,
So pregnant, palpable a Myth!”
Thought Ranolf listening. “Darkness breeds
A swarm of superstitious creeds
That crush Man's Spirit till it bleeds;
His Father—God! yes, him they clearly
A terror make, a scarecrow merely,
High up—unmoved—dry bones or worse
To his abandoned Universe.
His Mother, Earth—her wealth—her worth—
175
Enslaved so long, set day and night
To warn and war against the Light,—
Free Thought, the beautiful, the bright!
Whose Sons not seldom from their eyes
Shut out, dissemble and disguise
Its full results—half-veil its rays
(Till they shall gather to a blaze?)
And fondly feign they nurse no seeds
Of death to all those narrow creeds.
Howe'er that be, the Sun will soar!
His foes may slumber, rave, or roar—
Yet Dayspring spreads o'er sea and shore;
And now, even now, for all their din,
The killing Light is streaming in!—
But I attend. Bright-Eyes, proceed;
Your Myth seems one who runs may read!”
“Now, of heavenly birth to cheer him—beauteous from those blue dominions,
Hapae came—divine—a damsel—floating down on steady pinions;
Came, a moving moonbeam, nightly lit with Love his chamber brightly:
Till that Spring-time of her bosom flushed out in a baby-blossom.
Infant, it had infant failings. Once the dirt-delighted bantling,
Scornfully Tawháki jeered at. Straightway all the mother mantling
In her heart, her treasure Hapae caught up; to her plumy vesture
Pressed it nestling; then upspringing with reproachful look and gesture,
Sailed off to her skyey mansion, vanished in the blue expansion,
Like an Albatross that slides into the sunset,—whitely fading
With its fixed rare-winking vans, away into the crimson shading.
Only ere she parted, while the lagging Westwind she invited
Flapping her broad wings, a-tiptoe on the mannikin alighted
(Red—its arms on knees akimbo—squat—the gable-apex crowning)
One advice she waved Tawháki, more with grief than anger frowning:
‘If you ever feel the Child and Mother to your heart grow dearer,
Ever wish to follow and to find us, O unkindly sneerer,
And would climb by tree-dropt trailers to the Sky a little nearer,
O remember, leave the loose ones; only take and trust to surely
Such as hung from loftiest treetops, root themselves in earth securely!’
Hapae came—divine—a damsel—floating down on steady pinions;
Came, a moving moonbeam, nightly lit with Love his chamber brightly:
Till that Spring-time of her bosom flushed out in a baby-blossom.
Infant, it had infant failings. Once the dirt-delighted bantling,
Scornfully Tawháki jeered at. Straightway all the mother mantling
In her heart, her treasure Hapae caught up; to her plumy vesture
Pressed it nestling; then upspringing with reproachful look and gesture,
176
Like an Albatross that slides into the sunset,—whitely fading
With its fixed rare-winking vans, away into the crimson shading.
Only ere she parted, while the lagging Westwind she invited
Flapping her broad wings, a-tiptoe on the mannikin alighted
(Red—its arms on knees akimbo—squat—the gable-apex crowning)
One advice she waved Tawháki, more with grief than anger frowning:
‘If you ever feel the Child and Mother to your heart grow dearer,
Ever wish to follow and to find us, O unkindly sneerer,
And would climb by tree-dropt trailers to the Sky a little nearer,
O remember, leave the loose ones; only take and trust to surely
Such as hung from loftiest treetops, root themselves in earth securely!’
IV.
“Many a moon he mourned—Tawháki. Then he started to discover
Where they grew, those happy creepers, that could help a hapless lover.
Many a moon he roamed—Tawháki. And his heart was sore and weary
When he found himself despondent in a forest grand and dreary;
(Ah! that wildering wildwood—who can tell how dense it was and tangled!)
Where in wanton woody ringlets many a rope of trailers dangled.
Rapt, absorbed in her pursuit, a blind old Crone those creepers tended;
Caught at, groped and felt for any that within her reach descended.
He, an ancestress discerning, ere for counsel he implored her,
Touched her eyes, a charm repeating, and to sight at once restored her.
Then they found a creeper rooted, finely for his purpose suited.
Up he went exultingly, bold-hearted, joyous-eyed, firm-footed.
At the treetop, see! a tiny spiderthread upshooting shiny,
Wavering, viewless half, yet ever held aloft by mere endeavour!
With a beating heart, Tawháki, muttering many an incantation—
Wild with hope so high it takes the very hue of desperation,
Clasps the clue so evanescent; then with yearnings deep, incessant,
Seeing in the vault above him only Hapae's eyes that love him,
Up and up, for ever upward mounts he dauntless—nothing scares him,
Up through azure bright Abysses still that thread in triumph bears him!
Where they grew, those happy creepers, that could help a hapless lover.
Many a moon he roamed—Tawháki. And his heart was sore and weary
When he found himself despondent in a forest grand and dreary;
(Ah! that wildering wildwood—who can tell how dense it was and tangled!)
177
Rapt, absorbed in her pursuit, a blind old Crone those creepers tended;
Caught at, groped and felt for any that within her reach descended.
He, an ancestress discerning, ere for counsel he implored her,
Touched her eyes, a charm repeating, and to sight at once restored her.
Then they found a creeper rooted, finely for his purpose suited.
Up he went exultingly, bold-hearted, joyous-eyed, firm-footed.
At the treetop, see! a tiny spiderthread upshooting shiny,
Wavering, viewless half, yet ever held aloft by mere endeavour!
With a beating heart, Tawháki, muttering many an incantation—
Wild with hope so high it takes the very hue of desperation,
Clasps the clue so evanescent; then with yearnings deep, incessant,
Seeing in the vault above him only Hapae's eyes that love him,
Up and up, for ever upward mounts he dauntless—nothing scares him,
Up through azure bright Abysses still that thread in triumph bears him!
Suddenly a sunny grove is round him—cheery people working
At a great Canoe, appear. All day he keeps the thicket, lurking,
Till when balmy Shadow veils them and serenest Sleep assails them,
Stripping off his youthful glory, out he steals, an old Man hoary;
Strikes a few swift strokes, and magic-like the work is ended
Graceful with its lofty stern, with open-circled fretwork splendid,
Lo! the great Canoe completed! To his copse he then retreated;
On another hollowed trunk next night the wonderwork repeated.
At a great Canoe, appear. All day he keeps the thicket, lurking,
Till when balmy Shadow veils them and serenest Sleep assails them,
178
Strikes a few swift strokes, and magic-like the work is ended
Graceful with its lofty stern, with open-circled fretwork splendid,
Lo! the great Canoe completed! To his copse he then retreated;
On another hollowed trunk next night the wonderwork repeated.
—Those Celestials marvelled greatly; yet reflecting in their pleasure
Such a worker were a treasure as a Slave beyond all measure,
Watched and clutched that Old Man wilful—so decrepit yet so skilful,
And to their great Ruler bore him.—O delight! who sits before him?
'Tis his beautiful benign One, 'tis his downy-plumed divine one,
Hapae! will he now deride her or the subtle Elf beside her!—
Kindly greeted, with caresses he the Child allures and presses
To his heart no more to sever. Then, as he flings off for ever
That disguise's dim defilement, Hapae smiles sweet reconcilement;
Swift, the Child they bathe, baptize it, lustral waters o'er it dashing;
And Tawháki—breast and brow sublime insufferably flashing,
Hid in lightnings, as he looks out from the thunder-cloven portals
Of the sky—stands forth confest—a God and one of the Immortals!”
Such a worker were a treasure as a Slave beyond all measure,
Watched and clutched that Old Man wilful—so decrepit yet so skilful,
And to their great Ruler bore him.—O delight! who sits before him?
'Tis his beautiful benign One, 'tis his downy-plumed divine one,
Hapae! will he now deride her or the subtle Elf beside her!—
Kindly greeted, with caresses he the Child allures and presses
To his heart no more to sever. Then, as he flings off for ever
That disguise's dim defilement, Hapae smiles sweet reconcilement;
Swift, the Child they bathe, baptize it, lustral waters o'er it dashing;
And Tawháki—breast and brow sublime insufferably flashing,
Hid in lightnings, as he looks out from the thunder-cloven portals
Of the sky—stands forth confest—a God and one of the Immortals!”
179
V.
“More myth and deeper”—murmured he
As Amo rose and bid them wait
Her quick return: “But how translate
In German style the mystery?—
Shall Hapae our Urania be?
The ‘meaning not the name’ were she?—
And if Philosophy Divine
Whose radiant features wont to shine
With heavenly splendour, hopes so rare,
To Man's enfranchised Soul resign
Her charms celestial;—if their Child
Hight Science seem at first defiled
With taint its infancy may wear—
Materialism—foul Despair—
Shall he the wondrous birth despise?
Perhaps of those imperial ties
With Reason, free Enlightenment,
That marriage made in heaven, repent—
Until his fair Urania flies
Despondent to her native skies?
No, but from her he cannot sever—
Can ne'er resist the lofty lure
Of those aspiring eyes so pure!
His must she be, to forfeit never,
His hopeful, heavenly One for ever!
As Amo rose and bid them wait
Her quick return: “But how translate
In German style the mystery?—
Shall Hapae our Urania be?
The ‘meaning not the name’ were she?—
And if Philosophy Divine
Whose radiant features wont to shine
With heavenly splendour, hopes so rare,
To Man's enfranchised Soul resign
Her charms celestial;—if their Child
Hight Science seem at first defiled
With taint its infancy may wear—
Materialism—foul Despair—
Shall he the wondrous birth despise?
Perhaps of those imperial ties
With Reason, free Enlightenment,
That marriage made in heaven, repent—
Until his fair Urania flies
Despondent to her native skies?
No, but from her he cannot sever—
Can ne'er resist the lofty lure
Of those aspiring eyes so pure!
His must she be, to forfeit never,
His hopeful, heavenly One for ever!
But where to seek the Angel flown?—
Can that dark forest overgrown
Be Metaphysics? And the Crone
So watchworn, Kant or Hegel is't?
Some mighty Transcendentalist?
Or some serene Sensationist
With both his blinkers on? content,
Nay proud, with his old-fashioned bent
(Anile, perhaps?) to take and teach
Just what his eyes and hands can reach?—
Well! let the climber cling through all
To truths they call ‘phenomenal,’
Well-rooted in the circle small
Of our preceptions; and ne'er doubt,
That, sown and springing from without,
These parasites upon the Tree
Of shadowy-leaved Humanity,
(Like those depending trailers, sprung
From floating seeds sky-dropt and flung
Upon the bark wherefrom they shoot
And reaching Earth take firmer root)—
These, even these, shall point the way,
The outlet find, some happy day,
By triple-plied deductions, say,
Or if by subtler clue it be,
Some thread of fine analogy,
To regions fair and fertile, where
Undimmed by dense refracting Sense,
Far in the Unapparent shine
Truths and assurances divine
Of God and deathless life confest,
Where the sad Wanderer sore distrest
May glad once more upon the breast
Of his regained Urania rest!—
Can that dark forest overgrown
Be Metaphysics? And the Crone
So watchworn, Kant or Hegel is't?
180
Or some serene Sensationist
With both his blinkers on? content,
Nay proud, with his old-fashioned bent
(Anile, perhaps?) to take and teach
Just what his eyes and hands can reach?—
Well! let the climber cling through all
To truths they call ‘phenomenal,’
Well-rooted in the circle small
Of our preceptions; and ne'er doubt,
That, sown and springing from without,
These parasites upon the Tree
Of shadowy-leaved Humanity,
(Like those depending trailers, sprung
From floating seeds sky-dropt and flung
Upon the bark wherefrom they shoot
And reaching Earth take firmer root)—
These, even these, shall point the way,
The outlet find, some happy day,
By triple-plied deductions, say,
Or if by subtler clue it be,
Some thread of fine analogy,
To regions fair and fertile, where
Undimmed by dense refracting Sense,
Far in the Unapparent shine
Truths and assurances divine
Of God and deathless life confest,
Where the sad Wanderer sore distrest
May glad once more upon the breast
Of his regained Urania rest!—
181
VI.
“With yet more truth the legend teems.Man's heaven's a heaven of Work it seems;
Yet though his matchless Art reduce
The World of Matter to his use;
Carve out that grand design, until
Its primal Force start forth compliant,
His Science-Lamp's good Genie-Giant,
Ardent to help him at his will,
Achieve whate'er that will may dare,
To walk the sea or ride the air;
Nay, though his potent patient skill
Work subtler witcheries, stranger still;
Take weeds and turn their downy fluff
To magic mirrors that retain
Whate'er impress of loveliness
May, flitting by, their surface stain;
Take light, and its fine rays unravel
Till they betray the inmost stuff
The stars are made of whence they travel;
Through continents and Ocean-caves
Whisper a lightning-language; yet
Not this alone his nature craves;
All these a loftier race may set
As tasks and triumphs fit for slaves
Who cannot reach a nobler goal
Nor conquer truths that touch the Soul!
VII.
“All fancy this! invention pure;That credulous complaisant whim
182
To which no Oracles are dim,
No doting prophecies obscure.
Myths may be construed many ways;
Things take a hundred shapes in haze;
In this world, like as Child and Mother,
Matter and Spirit ape each other,
Into each other shift and run—
(Both, better known, may turn out one)
And type and antitype around
In all things may be feigned or found.
Yet for all this, most true it is,
That savage story strangely rings
With echoes of profoundest things;
Glows with the old celestial yearning;
Nay glimmers with a faint discerning
How nought can stifle or repress
Man's upward tendency—the stress
Towards ampler Being, nothing less
Than high immortal Happiness.”
183
Canto the Sixth. Mythical Cosmogonies.
1. A native Repast. 2. Maori Theogony and Cosmogony. 3. Ranolf jestingly personifies a materialistic God and Creator. 4. How they take it. The ‘Parson-bird.’ Intoning. 5. Love—the intruder. The Magician watching the Lovers.
I.
Then Amohia, who, her story ended,Had left the group, returned, not unattended.
A sturdy stripling by her side,
Te Manu, to herself by blood allied,
Coal-curled, brown-cheeked, with beardless chin—
Good-humour broadly shining in his wide
Black eyes and teeth white-glistening through a grin—
Came from the beach where the canoe was tied,
And on the ground before the Stranger placed,
That he the first might touch and taste,
In flax-wov'n basket for a dish,
A dainty pile of delicate fish
In native style deliciously steam-drest;
Like whitebait some; some boiled bright red,
184
With sunk fern-bundles lifted from the Lake:
Next, roasted fern-root pounded to a cake,
Milkwhite and floury; and the choicer roots,
The new potato and its substitutes,
The kúmara and táro. Then a store
Of jellies, ruddy-clear as claret, pressed
And well preserved from fruits last season bore,
Rich clusters of tupaki, luscious sweet;
With water mixed their noontide thirst to slake,
An innocent beverage truly! Rude the light
Repast, and simply wholesome at the best;
Yet scrupulously clean withal, it might
Have satisfied a more fastidious guest.
II.
And when the talk began again,
Said Ranolf, “How do you explain,
You Maori, how the heavens were hung
Up there? who spread the azure main?
Whence Man and all things living sprung?”
Said Ranolf, “How do you explain,
You Maori, how the heavens were hung
Up there? who spread the azure main?
Whence Man and all things living sprung?”
Prompt was an ancient Dame's reply,
Of wrinkled cheek yet lively eye,
Who took the pipe from her blue lips
And sate in grizzled dignity,
Proud of her crest that towered so high
Of hoopoe-feathers, black with snowy tips;—
Prompt was that ancient Dame's reply—
Compact her scheme of rude Cosmogony:
Of wrinkled cheek yet lively eye,
Who took the pipe from her blue lips
And sate in grizzled dignity,
Proud of her crest that towered so high
Of hoopoe-feathers, black with snowy tips;—
Prompt was that ancient Dame's reply—
Compact her scheme of rude Cosmogony:
185
“There was Night at the first—the great Darkness. Then Pahpa, the Earth, ever genial, general Mother,
And our Father, fair Rangi—the Sky—in commixture unbounded confusedly clave to each other:
And between them close cramped lay their children gigantic—all Gods. He the mightiest, eldest, the Moulder
And Maker of Man—whose delight is in heroes—Tumatau—the Courage-inspirer, the Battle-upholder;
Tangaroa, far-foaming, the Sire of the myriads that silvery cleave the cerulean waters;
And the solemn and beauteous Tanë, who gathers his stateliest, green-ever, trees-waving daughters
Into forests, the sunny, the songster-bethridden; then Rongo—the peaceful, the kindly provider
Of the roots that with culture are milkiest, pithiest; he too, who flings them in wilder and wider
Profusion uncultured nor needing it—Haumia; lastly, the fiercest of any, the Rider
Of Tempests—Tawhiri, joy-wild when his sons—when the Winds multitudinous rush with the rattle
Of hail and the sting of sharp showers and the hurry of turbulent clouds to aerial battle.
All these did the weight of vast Rangi o'erwhelm; there restlessly, rampantly, brother on brother
Lay writhing and wrestling in vain to get free from the infinite coil and confusion and smother;
Till the forest-God, Tanë, with one mighty wrench irresistible prized his great parents asunder—
With his knotty and numberless talons held down—held the Earth and its mountain magnificence under,
Heaved the Heavens aloft with a million broad limbs shot on high, all together rebounding, resilient:
Then at once came the Light interfused, interflowing,—serenely soft-eddying—crystalline—brilliant!—
Now the Sons all remained with the Earth but Tawhiri; he, sole, in tempestuous resentment receding
Swept away at the skirts of his Father—the Sky; but swiftly to vengeance and victory leading
His livid battalions, returned in his terrors, his kindred with torment and torture to harry:
Tangaroa rolled howling before him—even Tanë bowed down; could his blast-besplit progeny parry
His blows, or withstand the full pelt of his torrents that flung them o'er wastes of white Ocean to welter?
Could Rongo do more ere he fled than conceal in the warmth of Earth's bosom his children for shelter?—
No! they shrank from the Storm-God amazed and affrighted. One brother—Tumatau—alone durst abide him,
Tumatau and Man stood before him unswerving, deserted by all, disregarded, defied him!
But Man that defection still punishes daily; with snare, net and spear still their offspring he chases,
Tangaroa's and Tanë's—the feathered—the finny; still turns up and tears from her tender embraces
All that Rongo has laid in the lap of his Mother; while fiercely Tawhiri still plagues all their races—
Ever wreaks his wild anger on blue Tangaroa, and whirls into spray-wreaths the billows he lashes—
On the Earth whose rich berries and blossoms he scatters and scathes; on the forests he splinters and crashes;
And on Man who stands firm when his thunder is loudest and laughs when his lightning incessantly flashes!”
And our Father, fair Rangi—the Sky—in commixture unbounded confusedly clave to each other:
And between them close cramped lay their children gigantic—all Gods. He the mightiest, eldest, the Moulder
And Maker of Man—whose delight is in heroes—Tumatau—the Courage-inspirer, the Battle-upholder;
Tangaroa, far-foaming, the Sire of the myriads that silvery cleave the cerulean waters;
And the solemn and beauteous Tanë, who gathers his stateliest, green-ever, trees-waving daughters
Into forests, the sunny, the songster-bethridden; then Rongo—the peaceful, the kindly provider
Of the roots that with culture are milkiest, pithiest; he too, who flings them in wilder and wider
Profusion uncultured nor needing it—Haumia; lastly, the fiercest of any, the Rider
Of Tempests—Tawhiri, joy-wild when his sons—when the Winds multitudinous rush with the rattle
Of hail and the sting of sharp showers and the hurry of turbulent clouds to aerial battle.
All these did the weight of vast Rangi o'erwhelm; there restlessly, rampantly, brother on brother
Lay writhing and wrestling in vain to get free from the infinite coil and confusion and smother;
Till the forest-God, Tanë, with one mighty wrench irresistible prized his great parents asunder—
With his knotty and numberless talons held down—held the Earth and its mountain magnificence under,
Heaved the Heavens aloft with a million broad limbs shot on high, all together rebounding, resilient:
186
Now the Sons all remained with the Earth but Tawhiri; he, sole, in tempestuous resentment receding
Swept away at the skirts of his Father—the Sky; but swiftly to vengeance and victory leading
His livid battalions, returned in his terrors, his kindred with torment and torture to harry:
Tangaroa rolled howling before him—even Tanë bowed down; could his blast-besplit progeny parry
His blows, or withstand the full pelt of his torrents that flung them o'er wastes of white Ocean to welter?
Could Rongo do more ere he fled than conceal in the warmth of Earth's bosom his children for shelter?—
No! they shrank from the Storm-God amazed and affrighted. One brother—Tumatau—alone durst abide him,
Tumatau and Man stood before him unswerving, deserted by all, disregarded, defied him!
But Man that defection still punishes daily; with snare, net and spear still their offspring he chases,
Tangaroa's and Tanë's—the feathered—the finny; still turns up and tears from her tender embraces
All that Rongo has laid in the lap of his Mother; while fiercely Tawhiri still plagues all their races—
Ever wreaks his wild anger on blue Tangaroa, and whirls into spray-wreaths the billows he lashes—
On the Earth whose rich berries and blossoms he scatters and scathes; on the forests he splinters and crashes;
And on Man who stands firm when his thunder is loudest and laughs when his lightning incessantly flashes!”
187
III.
Said Amohia, “In your heart you laugh;
You think all this is nonsense, to-e, ‘chaff;’
Nay then, O Stranger, answer in your turn,
For still, you see, the Sun
Has wellnigh half his course to run,
Of his beginning—of the birth
Of all things, Sea and Sky and Earth,
What from their Sages do the white men learn?”
You think all this is nonsense, to-e, ‘chaff;’
Nay then, O Stranger, answer in your turn,
For still, you see, the Sun
Has wellnigh half his course to run,
Of his beginning—of the birth
Of all things, Sea and Sky and Earth,
What from their Sages do the white men learn?”
Silent he scanned an instant's space
The open eyes, the candid face
Of the inquiring earnest Maid;
Then as a half-satiric smile
Twitched at the corners of his mouth, the while
Lurked in his eyes a sly malicious twinkle,
Rushed off into a wild tirade—
Not caring if his words were clear or dim,
Only obedient to the moment's whim,
Somewhat like this: for we must sprinkle
With thoughts and phrases freer and more flowery,
The ruder baldness of his simple Maori;
Or rather, quote in full the jesting rhyme
Remembered from that Student-time,
Of which some outlines he employed—
With many explanations too
'Mid interruptions not a few—
To give to her whose wonder he enjoyed,
Some notion of a World-creator new,
Or virtual Deity, which to content us—
Your orthodox Materialists—a breed
Large-swallowed for a subternatural creed—
Have (or in reason might as well have) lent us:
The open eyes, the candid face
Of the inquiring earnest Maid;
Then as a half-satiric smile
Twitched at the corners of his mouth, the while
Lurked in his eyes a sly malicious twinkle,
Rushed off into a wild tirade—
Not caring if his words were clear or dim,
Only obedient to the moment's whim,
Somewhat like this: for we must sprinkle
With thoughts and phrases freer and more flowery,
The ruder baldness of his simple Maori;
Or rather, quote in full the jesting rhyme
Remembered from that Student-time,
Of which some outlines he employed—
With many explanations too
'Mid interruptions not a few—
To give to her whose wonder he enjoyed,
Some notion of a World-creator new,
188
Your orthodox Materialists—a breed
Large-swallowed for a subternatural creed—
Have (or in reason might as well have) lent us:
“There's a God they call Motion; a wonderful Being,
Omnipresent, omnipotent! thinking and seeing,
All life, birth, existences, creatures, conditions,
Of his versatile skill ever-new exhibitions,
Are but phases his phantasy, subtle or simple,
Condescends to assume; from the faintest first dimple
He indents in the vapour that veils him—beginning
As he slides to a pirouette graceful and winning,
Such a whirl of Creation, such Universe-spinning,—
To his last of developments dense or ethereal,
When as Consciousness crowned with a halo imperial,
Though but grovelling in granules and cells ganglionic
In the brain of Mankind sits the grand Histrionic!
'Tis the strangest and stoutest of creeds and convictions—
'Tis a God that defies and disdains contradictions:
His adorers, though puzzled perhaps to say whether
He is they, or they he, they are mixed so together;—
(Though himself best proclaims his own glory Protean,
When as lightning he dances with worship Judæan,
Or intones as deep thunder his own Io-Pæan)
His adorers as Deity scorn to avow him,
Yet with faculties really divinest endow him!
All the powers creative they scornfully ravish
From the old-fashioned God of the million they lavish
On this Phantom with faith unsuspecting and slavish!
Then—like virgins once flung to that Sea-dragon scaly,
At the shrine of their Pagod they immolate gaily
Aspirations Humanity feeds upon daily;
There consume, with serene suicidal devotion
Whole heart-loads of lofty and tender emotion,
All the foredawn of gold over Life's darksome Ocean.
And they vary his victims with Logic—no little;
Never spare Common Sense—not a fraction—nor tittle;
Show no mercy for Sciences moral or mental;
And for Metaphysicians—the tribe transcendental,
Would burn them to cinders—a holocaust; striving
On the ashes to keep their Divinity thriving.
For strange though it seem, this Almighty Mechanic,
Undesigning Designer of all things organic,
Comes from nowhere himself: his own Father and Mother—
Never caused though all-causing—derived from no other;
And arranges, combines for such orderly courses
His myriad myriads of multiform forces
By accident only—repulsion—attraction—
Into beautiful symmetry, uniform action;
By headlong unweeting haphazard produces
Profound adaptations to infinite uses;
And as helplessly, stolidly stumbles on wonders,
With as little intention, as others on blunders;
Deaf and dumb, and stone blind, can make eyes, ears and voices,
Till with Beauty—Light—Music—all Nature rejoices;
Nay, unconscious beforehand arrives in due season
By dint of mere going, at Thought, Sense and Reason;
With no Mind, makes all Mind—that fine consummation,
That can trace the back steps of the blind operation;
Aye can soar on the wings of sublime calculation
O'er the flaming far ramparts of star-filled Creation.
So this Fetish—this Stock-God, this Impulse unguided,
With no aim and no sense, yet success so decided,
Still manipulates Atoms by no one provided
Into Minds like vast Mountains a World overviewing;—
With no better notion of what he is doing,
Hits off Shakspeares and Newtons and Cæsars and Platos—
Than the logs on the ashes which roast your potatoes:
And the men who consider this creed satisfactory
And would smile with mild pity on Sceptics refractory,
Poor crawlers who crowd to a house with a steeple,—
Are—some of the wisest and best of our people.”
Omnipresent, omnipotent! thinking and seeing,
All life, birth, existences, creatures, conditions,
Of his versatile skill ever-new exhibitions,
Are but phases his phantasy, subtle or simple,
Condescends to assume; from the faintest first dimple
He indents in the vapour that veils him—beginning
As he slides to a pirouette graceful and winning,
Such a whirl of Creation, such Universe-spinning,—
To his last of developments dense or ethereal,
When as Consciousness crowned with a halo imperial,
Though but grovelling in granules and cells ganglionic
In the brain of Mankind sits the grand Histrionic!
'Tis the strangest and stoutest of creeds and convictions—
'Tis a God that defies and disdains contradictions:
His adorers, though puzzled perhaps to say whether
He is they, or they he, they are mixed so together;—
(Though himself best proclaims his own glory Protean,
When as lightning he dances with worship Judæan,
Or intones as deep thunder his own Io-Pæan)
His adorers as Deity scorn to avow him,
Yet with faculties really divinest endow him!
All the powers creative they scornfully ravish
From the old-fashioned God of the million they lavish
On this Phantom with faith unsuspecting and slavish!
Then—like virgins once flung to that Sea-dragon scaly,
189
Aspirations Humanity feeds upon daily;
There consume, with serene suicidal devotion
Whole heart-loads of lofty and tender emotion,
All the foredawn of gold over Life's darksome Ocean.
And they vary his victims with Logic—no little;
Never spare Common Sense—not a fraction—nor tittle;
Show no mercy for Sciences moral or mental;
And for Metaphysicians—the tribe transcendental,
Would burn them to cinders—a holocaust; striving
On the ashes to keep their Divinity thriving.
For strange though it seem, this Almighty Mechanic,
Undesigning Designer of all things organic,
Comes from nowhere himself: his own Father and Mother—
Never caused though all-causing—derived from no other;
And arranges, combines for such orderly courses
His myriad myriads of multiform forces
By accident only—repulsion—attraction—
Into beautiful symmetry, uniform action;
By headlong unweeting haphazard produces
Profound adaptations to infinite uses;
And as helplessly, stolidly stumbles on wonders,
With as little intention, as others on blunders;
Deaf and dumb, and stone blind, can make eyes, ears and voices,
Till with Beauty—Light—Music—all Nature rejoices;
Nay, unconscious beforehand arrives in due season
By dint of mere going, at Thought, Sense and Reason;
With no Mind, makes all Mind—that fine consummation,
That can trace the back steps of the blind operation;
Aye can soar on the wings of sublime calculation
O'er the flaming far ramparts of star-filled Creation.
So this Fetish—this Stock-God, this Impulse unguided,
190
Still manipulates Atoms by no one provided
Into Minds like vast Mountains a World overviewing;—
With no better notion of what he is doing,
Hits off Shakspeares and Newtons and Cæsars and Platos—
Than the logs on the ashes which roast your potatoes:
And the men who consider this creed satisfactory
And would smile with mild pity on Sceptics refractory,
Poor crawlers who crowd to a house with a steeple,—
Are—some of the wisest and best of our people.”
IV.
To this effusion nought replied
The listeners; only said aside,
“The Stranger mocks us;” quietly—
Too courteous for expressed dissent,
Too proud to show astonishment
Or ignorance of their Guest's intent.
That laughing lunch-purveyor, he
Only to Miroa muttered low:
“A tito this—a fib, I know;
'Tis nothing like what Mapou says
Of their white Átua and his ways;
And he can tell, who visits most
And learns all news that reach the coast.
This Stranger too,”—and here the grin
Grew broader,—“by his dress at least
Is not a Tohunga, a Priest;
For Mapou says, they always go
In shining black from top to toe,
With two white plumes beneath their chin,
Just like that Tu-i, Mapou thought.”
And Ranolf smiled, whose quick ear caught
The fancy, as he saw just then
The bird they spoke of, down the glen
Come dashing, with its glossy coat
Like jet-black satin shot with green
And blue reflexions—at its throat
Two dainty-pencilled plumes of snow;
And once again admired, as oft
Before, its lively ways and mien;
As flitting, shifting to and fro
It ransacked every kowhai-tree
In yellow bloom, and loudly coughed
And loudly whistled in its glee,
And turned quite over, bending low
Its busy head to reach and dip
Into the pendent flowers and sip
Their juice, in fluttering glad unrest,
Unceasing in its honey-quest.
The listeners; only said aside,
“The Stranger mocks us;” quietly—
Too courteous for expressed dissent,
Too proud to show astonishment
Or ignorance of their Guest's intent.
That laughing lunch-purveyor, he
Only to Miroa muttered low:
“A tito this—a fib, I know;
'Tis nothing like what Mapou says
Of their white Átua and his ways;
And he can tell, who visits most
And learns all news that reach the coast.
This Stranger too,”—and here the grin
Grew broader,—“by his dress at least
Is not a Tohunga, a Priest;
For Mapou says, they always go
In shining black from top to toe,
With two white plumes beneath their chin,
191
And Ranolf smiled, whose quick ear caught
The fancy, as he saw just then
The bird they spoke of, down the glen
Come dashing, with its glossy coat
Like jet-black satin shot with green
And blue reflexions—at its throat
Two dainty-pencilled plumes of snow;
And once again admired, as oft
Before, its lively ways and mien;
As flitting, shifting to and fro
It ransacked every kowhai-tree
In yellow bloom, and loudly coughed
And loudly whistled in its glee,
And turned quite over, bending low
Its busy head to reach and dip
Into the pendent flowers and sip
Their juice, in fluttering glad unrest,
Unceasing in its honey-quest.
“That may be true,” said Miroa, “too;
For 'tis averred they are like a bird
In this (although it seems a joke)
They cannot speak like other folk,
But always sing what they would say,
E'en when they to their Átua pray.”
—But here that feather-crested Dame
Who this light chatter overheard
Rebuked them—feeling it became
Her sage experience to repress
Such sallies of mere sauciness:
“Oh foolish you! we always do
Ourselves in all our prayers the same!
Do we not sing for all we want?
May they not know some potent chaunt
To charm their Átua from his haunt,
As we coax eels to leave the mud?”—
Such reasoning they could not gainsay,
It nipped their satire in the bud.
For 'tis averred they are like a bird
In this (although it seems a joke)
They cannot speak like other folk,
But always sing what they would say,
E'en when they to their Átua pray.”
—But here that feather-crested Dame
Who this light chatter overheard
Rebuked them—feeling it became
Her sage experience to repress
Such sallies of mere sauciness:
192
Ourselves in all our prayers the same!
Do we not sing for all we want?
May they not know some potent chaunt
To charm their Átua from his haunt,
As we coax eels to leave the mud?”—
Such reasoning they could not gainsay,
It nipped their satire in the bud.
V.
Meanwhile, another Guest had been
Among them though unnoticed and unseen;
Joining their converse with no audible tongue,
And speaking mystic Music without sound;
On whose mute melodies the listener hung;
Whose viewless Presence brightened all around.
Who should it be but that Consoler dear,
Heartwhispering Paraclete of priceless cheer—
Who but the Enchanter—Love? whose witchery flings
Fresh life round Daybreak's life-enlivening springs;
Heaps Noon on Noon for fervour; double-dyes
For deeper pathos Eve's empurpled skies.
Did he not use his artless Art that day
With slightest means most meaning to convey?
Some idle question asked as if in sport,
Some falter in the tone or breath drawn short—
Some touch of tapering fingers—touch so fleet,
They seem, just seem, as they a moment meet,
To linger ere they leave the contact sweet?
Or scorning all less subtle ministries
Did He not speak through Amohia's eyes,
Whose lids and raven lashes though they fell
Dark as a closing bird's-wing o'er their light
Upon her rich warm cheek, could never quite
Shut-in their lustrous tenderness, nor quell
Their rebel glances eloquent of Him,
More than the mother-bird can fold with hers
Her crowd of small quick-running loiterers
So closely, safely, that no single one
Of all the nestling, jostling train
May slip a moment out into the sun,
Although next moment gathered in again;
Whene'er that brooding mother sees
The stiff-stretched hawk across the blue vault swim;
As once or twice amid the trees
Had Amohia marked the Priest appear,
(Though vanishing almost as soon as seen)
With eyes inscrutable and dim
Watching herself and Ranolf; though with mien
Not threatening now, malignant nor severe,
Whatever cause she had to fear.
Among them though unnoticed and unseen;
Joining their converse with no audible tongue,
And speaking mystic Music without sound;
On whose mute melodies the listener hung;
Whose viewless Presence brightened all around.
Who should it be but that Consoler dear,
Heartwhispering Paraclete of priceless cheer—
Who but the Enchanter—Love? whose witchery flings
Fresh life round Daybreak's life-enlivening springs;
Heaps Noon on Noon for fervour; double-dyes
For deeper pathos Eve's empurpled skies.
Did he not use his artless Art that day
With slightest means most meaning to convey?
Some idle question asked as if in sport,
Some falter in the tone or breath drawn short—
Some touch of tapering fingers—touch so fleet,
They seem, just seem, as they a moment meet,
To linger ere they leave the contact sweet?
Or scorning all less subtle ministries
Did He not speak through Amohia's eyes,
Whose lids and raven lashes though they fell
193
Upon her rich warm cheek, could never quite
Shut-in their lustrous tenderness, nor quell
Their rebel glances eloquent of Him,
More than the mother-bird can fold with hers
Her crowd of small quick-running loiterers
So closely, safely, that no single one
Of all the nestling, jostling train
May slip a moment out into the sun,
Although next moment gathered in again;
Whene'er that brooding mother sees
The stiff-stretched hawk across the blue vault swim;
As once or twice amid the trees
Had Amohia marked the Priest appear,
(Though vanishing almost as soon as seen)
With eyes inscrutable and dim
Watching herself and Ranolf; though with mien
Not threatening now, malignant nor severe,
Whatever cause she had to fear.
—But who could tell what hatred fell,
What dark designs might not be found
Within his heart whose face no less
Was such a smooth and placid screen?—
How many a man amid the press,
Is but a walking Wilderness,—
Like some fierce Ameer's hunting-ground
By lofty walls concealed, confined:
Caverns interminable wind,
Abysses yawn, those walls behind;
There wild beasts prowl and moan and howl
Of lust and greed and all excess;
They peer and pry who wander by—
The smooth fair walls are all they spy.
What dark designs might not be found
Within his heart whose face no less
Was such a smooth and placid screen?—
How many a man amid the press,
Is but a walking Wilderness,—
Like some fierce Ameer's hunting-ground
By lofty walls concealed, confined:
Caverns interminable wind,
Abysses yawn, those walls behind;
194
Of lust and greed and all excess;
They peer and pry who wander by—
The smooth fair walls are all they spy.
But little of his looks recked they,
Which though they keenly glanced their way
Did yet no ill intent betray.
So from redundant springs all day
Flowed streams of converse, grave and gay.
Which though they keenly glanced their way
Did yet no ill intent betray.
So from redundant springs all day
Flowed streams of converse, grave and gay.
195
Canto the Seventh. The Captive.
1. Ranolf seized. 2. Where imprisoned. 3. Prospect of death. 4. A midnight visitor. 5. Plot against him explained. 6. The first Kiss. 7. The parting. Amo's despairing song. 8. Nature helps Love.
I.
O'er all the East the sunset's flushFrom plain to peak began to rise;
That slowly-fading fever flush
Of beauteous Day before she dies.
The friends again had reached the Isle
And for a little space had parted;
Those elder women kindly-hearted
About the evening meal employed:
Their guest had strolled away awhile,
And by the Lake the painted eve enjoyed;
There, tempted after all the sweltering heat
By the cool water glistening black
In shade behind a green spur's shelving back,
Which seemed a place for bathing meet,
Had passed some wooded rocks upon his right
196
The path in gloom almost as dark as night—
When from behind he felt himself assailed
By ambushed men unseen, unknown;
Before he could resist was overpowered;
A mantle o'er his head was thrown,
His arms and feet fast pinioned; nor availed
His stifled shouts, the threats and taunts he showered
Upon his dastard foes, who answered nought
But with determined silence and one will
Their struggling captive rapidly conveyed
O'er rocks and rooty paths (he thought)
Where branches oft their way opposed
Into some place from outer air enclosed;
For cooler seemed and yet more still
The atmosphere; and on his sense the smell
Of the dried rushes used in buildings fell.
There on the ground the luckless youth they laid;
And when a sliding panel was made fast
With cautious footsteps out of hearing passed.
II.
Now left alone, the youth contrived to free
His head, and strove his prison-place to see.
All round was sombre darkness; but it teemed
With great white ghastly eyes that strangely gleamed
With pink and silvery flashings here and there,
And seemed to float and throb in the dun air;
Then by degrees grew motionless, and fixed
On him one savage and concentred gaze;
And slowly he discerns, those eyes betwixt,
Features gigantic—furious—in amaze;
Wild brows upbranching broad, yet corrugate
With close-knit frowns ferocious; blubber lips
Stretched wide as rage and mockery can strain
Mouths—monstrous as the Shark's when 'mid the ship's
Exultant crew he gnashes in dumb pain—
That grin grotesque, intense and horrible hate,
And thrust out sidelong tongues that from their root
The very frenzy of defiance shoot.
So, with malignant and astonished stare
They gaze, as if the intruder's blood to freeze.
His head, and strove his prison-place to see.
All round was sombre darkness; but it teemed
With great white ghastly eyes that strangely gleamed
With pink and silvery flashings here and there,
And seemed to float and throb in the dun air;
Then by degrees grew motionless, and fixed
On him one savage and concentred gaze;
197
Features gigantic—furious—in amaze;
Wild brows upbranching broad, yet corrugate
With close-knit frowns ferocious; blubber lips
Stretched wide as rage and mockery can strain
Mouths—monstrous as the Shark's when 'mid the ship's
Exultant crew he gnashes in dumb pain—
That grin grotesque, intense and horrible hate,
And thrust out sidelong tongues that from their root
The very frenzy of defiance shoot.
So, with malignant and astonished stare
They gaze, as if the intruder's blood to freeze.
At length, accustomed to the gloom, he sees
What dwarfish forms those ponderous heads upbear;
Their crooked tortoise-legs, club-curved and short;
Their hands, like toasting-forks or tridents prest
Against each broad and circle-fretted breast;
And all the fact discerned at last, he knows
These pigmy-giants form red-ochred rows
Of rafters and pilasters to support
A spacious hall;—some carved in high relief;
While others standing from the walls aloof
Piled up in pillars of squat monsters rise
Perched on each others' shoulders to the roof.
The tribe's great Council-Chamber this should be,
Their Wháre-kúra, Hall of sacred Red,
For worship—justice; where the most adept,
The glorious deeds of their ancestral dead,
And pedigrees that back for centuries crept,
Safe in their memories by rehearsal kept.
Those forms were effigies (he might surmise)
Each of some famous ancestress or chief;
But to his fancy now the crowd appeared
A Gorgon-eyed and grinning demonry
Whose fiendish rancour his misfortune jeered.
What dwarfish forms those ponderous heads upbear;
Their crooked tortoise-legs, club-curved and short;
Their hands, like toasting-forks or tridents prest
Against each broad and circle-fretted breast;
And all the fact discerned at last, he knows
These pigmy-giants form red-ochred rows
Of rafters and pilasters to support
A spacious hall;—some carved in high relief;
While others standing from the walls aloof
Piled up in pillars of squat monsters rise
Perched on each others' shoulders to the roof.
The tribe's great Council-Chamber this should be,
Their Wháre-kúra, Hall of sacred Red,
For worship—justice; where the most adept,
The glorious deeds of their ancestral dead,
And pedigrees that back for centuries crept,
Safe in their memories by rehearsal kept.
Those forms were effigies (he might surmise)
Each of some famous ancestress or chief;
198
A Gorgon-eyed and grinning demonry
Whose fiendish rancour his misfortune jeered.
III.
And bitter were his feelings as he lay
To dark forebodings, anxious fears a prey:
What could have caused this outrage? whose the deed?
Or what its object? in his utmost need
Where could he look for succour? how escape
The doom that threatened him in some dread shape
He scarce could doubt, although the thought might strike
His cooler mind, so unprovoked a wrong
Done by these islanders, was little like
(As all his past experience would attest)
Their usual treatment of a peaceful guest.
And though the tide of his regrets ran strong
With self-reproaches that a careless hour
Had placed his life within their savage power,
Mokoia's Chief he felt could never be
Privy to such a wrong!—The ‘Sounding Sea’
Had spurned such crafty craven treachery.
His natural spirits at the thought revived;
And he resolved forthwith to be prepared
The moment that his unknown foes arrived
And loosed his bonds, to spring upon them—dash
Between then—struggle—lose no slightest chance
But do and dare whatever might be dared
Or done, however desperate, wild and rash,
That might accomplish his deliverance.
Or if no opening should occur for swift
Decisive force or dexterous agile shift,
He still would try what gentle means might do,—
Never despair! in worst extremes he knew
So many chances to the brave accrue,
Hopes to the true heart come so often true!
To dark forebodings, anxious fears a prey:
What could have caused this outrage? whose the deed?
Or what its object? in his utmost need
Where could he look for succour? how escape
The doom that threatened him in some dread shape
He scarce could doubt, although the thought might strike
His cooler mind, so unprovoked a wrong
Done by these islanders, was little like
(As all his past experience would attest)
Their usual treatment of a peaceful guest.
And though the tide of his regrets ran strong
With self-reproaches that a careless hour
Had placed his life within their savage power,
Mokoia's Chief he felt could never be
Privy to such a wrong!—The ‘Sounding Sea’
Had spurned such crafty craven treachery.
His natural spirits at the thought revived;
And he resolved forthwith to be prepared
The moment that his unknown foes arrived
And loosed his bonds, to spring upon them—dash
Between then—struggle—lose no slightest chance
But do and dare whatever might be dared
Or done, however desperate, wild and rash,
That might accomplish his deliverance.
Or if no opening should occur for swift
Decisive force or dexterous agile shift,
199
Never despair! in worst extremes he knew
So many chances to the brave accrue,
Hopes to the true heart come so often true!
But should all fail, and he be doomed to die,
Ah, could he help but feel—no soul so dull
As not to feel—how deep the misery—
The bitterness to leave a world so full
Of vivid beauty, varied life and joy,
'Twould scarce the wisest even in ages cloy!
Yet even then he had the heart to rest
In trust his great All-giver would invest—
Out of the infinite exhaustless store
Of Life he loves with lavish hand to pour
Thick as a mist of dew-drops over all
The inconceivable array of star-worlds more
In number than the sands on ocean's shore—
His soul with new existence; though to dust
This apparition of mere clay should fall,
Its present phantasm. “What!” so ran the train
Of thoughts that darkling hurried through his brain
Like caverned ocean-tides—“‘Is man more just
Than God?’ that immemorial chime
Asked out of Arab wastes in earliest time;
And why not ask, Is he more generous, too?
Should not God's great beneficence outdo
What Man could in conception and in will
Be equal to? should He not spare
Another life—a hundred if need were,
To beings into whom his loving care
Did such deep longing for the boon instil?”—
Yes, he would trust in this his extreme need
The Infinite; who if infinite indeed
In aught, is infinite in Love as well
That must our own heart's highest love excel.
So with firm patience he resolves to wait,
Whatever be its form, his coming fate.
Ah, could he help but feel—no soul so dull
As not to feel—how deep the misery—
The bitterness to leave a world so full
Of vivid beauty, varied life and joy,
'Twould scarce the wisest even in ages cloy!
Yet even then he had the heart to rest
In trust his great All-giver would invest—
Out of the infinite exhaustless store
Of Life he loves with lavish hand to pour
Thick as a mist of dew-drops over all
The inconceivable array of star-worlds more
In number than the sands on ocean's shore—
His soul with new existence; though to dust
This apparition of mere clay should fall,
Its present phantasm. “What!” so ran the train
Of thoughts that darkling hurried through his brain
Like caverned ocean-tides—“‘Is man more just
Than God?’ that immemorial chime
Asked out of Arab wastes in earliest time;
And why not ask, Is he more generous, too?
Should not God's great beneficence outdo
What Man could in conception and in will
Be equal to? should He not spare
Another life—a hundred if need were,
To beings into whom his loving care
Did such deep longing for the boon instil?”—
Yes, he would trust in this his extreme need
200
In aught, is infinite in Love as well
That must our own heart's highest love excel.
So with firm patience he resolves to wait,
Whatever be its form, his coming fate.
IV.
Two hours or more had dragged their weary wayWhile cramped with chafing bonds in pain he lay.
Those stony eyes had faded from his sight
When deeper fell the shades of growing night.
Far, far away his mournful thoughts had flown
To friends and scenes in happy boyhood known;
When—hist! a rustling sound that softly falls
Upon his ear, his wandering mind recalls;
He listens—all is silent—then again
The rustle and slight creak are heard—'tis plain
Some cautious hand has thrust aside the door—
Some noiseless foot steals light along the floor.
The form that owned them had a moment hid
The patch of moonlight where the panel slid
Away—too briefly for his eye to trace
Its outline—guess its purpose; to his side,
So stealthy, swift and noiseless was its pace,
The shadowy Shape seemed less to walk than glide.
Could this some midnight murderer be? his heart
Beat quick as over him that Shadow bent—
Quick as the sweet breath felt upon his face,
That Phantom's breath, that quickly came and went
As if in his emotion it took part.
A soft voice whispered: “Stranger—hist! no word—
201
To her kind work, and every cutting cord
Sought out and severed with a sharpened shell.
Upsprung the youth, to life and joy restored;
And rapturous thanks had to the Maid outpoured,
But that her hand upon his lips was laid,
But that her lips in briefest whisper prayed
What her unseen more eloquent looks implored:
“O for your life no sound! but follow me—
Who knows how near your deadliest foe may be!”
V.
So through the doorway stealing in the dark,
She makes the panel fast, and he may mark
Less-pleased, that silvery blue solemnity
That mingles with the bowery trees hard by.
Then in the open, silently they creep,
They, and their shadows thrown so sharp and deep.
Upon a terrace half way up a cleft
Or hollow on the mountain's northern steep,
'Mid tufts of flax, tall-bladed, bright as glass,
And ferny tree-clumps, stood the house they left.
See! by a hut which they perforce must pass,
Across their very path, three youths, asleep
In the warm moon upon the sun-dried grass
Are lying!—'twould be ruin to retreat:—
The Maiden's heart, he almost hears it beat!
Each foot placed firm before the last is raised,
They step between the knees so nearly grazed:
And soon are safe beneath the blessed shade
By trees—themselves as still as shadows, made.
Then round the island's end, that fear allayed,
Beneath its woody western slopes they steal,
Where they may speak secure, and she reveal,
The cause and author of the base assault
Her friend had suffered. Kangapo's the fault—
That priest's, and not her father's, she averred:
For Kangapo's sole aim, he might have heard,
The one great passion that his bosom stirred,
The main pursuit in which his life was spent,
Was, next his own, their tribe's aggrandizement.
For this, by his advice, almost from birth,
Herself had been made ‘tapu’ to her grief,
To Taupo's Lord—an old whiteheaded chief,
Of mighty power, no doubt, high rank and worth;
And though this marriage of her dread and hate
That landslip had relieved her from of late,
Yet much she feared—the Priest already planned
Some other proud disposal of her hand;
So jealously he watched, so little brooked
The slightest glance of any youth who looked
With any (here she checked herself)—at least
Of any one who talked with her awhile.
And so that day when she observed the Priest
Eye them so keenly with his crafty smile,
Although deceived a moment by his guile,
It roused suspicions, strengthened when she saw
Again, on their returning to the Isle,
He noticed Ranolf from the group withdraw
At sunset; and himself stole off so soon
By the same pathway towards the western wood;
She followed; for the thing could bode no good;
But by another track; had seen him meet
Four men to whom his slightest wish was law,
Then to a copse of mánuka retreat
Where they could safely, secretly commune;
Had crept close-up on tiptoe—overheard
Their vile atrocious project every word;
To seize, bind, bear the Stranger to their great
Runanga-house; there leave him bound and wait
The setting of the Moon, till they could take
Their captive to the middle of the Lake,
Where they would throw him overboard, still bound;
And tell her Father next day how they found
The Stranger at his evening meal—with food—
Aye, food! beside the monument that stood
High carved in their most sacred burial-ground
O'er his most famous ancestor's dead bones:
And though a bird sung on it all the while—
Doubtless the spirit of that Chief renowned,
It still could not prevent the outrage vile:—
Would not such impious sacrilege astound
The boldest?—how aloof the crime they viewed
With hair on end, tongues to their palates glued
In speechless horror, motionless as stones:
But how his Ancestor's insulted Shade
With vengeance dire the deed profane repaid;
For when the Stranger launched his boat again
There was no ripple on the watery plain;
Yet scarce a spear-flight had he left the bank
Before his boat without a breeze capsized,
And with it—he with scarce a struggle—sank;
For all his powers that Spirit had paralyzed.
This was the plot concerted then and there;
And next she noted where his boat they hid
To make all points of their narration square;
And Miroa was to bring it, as she bid,
Round to a spot they presently would reach,—
Yes! there she saw them waiting on the beach!
The rest he knew. “But now, O Stranger, haste!
Fly to your skiff—O not a moment waste
In words—already, see! the Moon is low—
Away, before your flight those traitors know!”
She makes the panel fast, and he may mark
Less-pleased, that silvery blue solemnity
That mingles with the bowery trees hard by.
Then in the open, silently they creep,
They, and their shadows thrown so sharp and deep.
Upon a terrace half way up a cleft
Or hollow on the mountain's northern steep,
'Mid tufts of flax, tall-bladed, bright as glass,
And ferny tree-clumps, stood the house they left.
See! by a hut which they perforce must pass,
Across their very path, three youths, asleep
In the warm moon upon the sun-dried grass
Are lying!—'twould be ruin to retreat:—
The Maiden's heart, he almost hears it beat!
Each foot placed firm before the last is raised,
They step between the knees so nearly grazed:
And soon are safe beneath the blessed shade
By trees—themselves as still as shadows, made.
202
Beneath its woody western slopes they steal,
Where they may speak secure, and she reveal,
The cause and author of the base assault
Her friend had suffered. Kangapo's the fault—
That priest's, and not her father's, she averred:
For Kangapo's sole aim, he might have heard,
The one great passion that his bosom stirred,
The main pursuit in which his life was spent,
Was, next his own, their tribe's aggrandizement.
For this, by his advice, almost from birth,
Herself had been made ‘tapu’ to her grief,
To Taupo's Lord—an old whiteheaded chief,
Of mighty power, no doubt, high rank and worth;
And though this marriage of her dread and hate
That landslip had relieved her from of late,
Yet much she feared—the Priest already planned
Some other proud disposal of her hand;
So jealously he watched, so little brooked
The slightest glance of any youth who looked
With any (here she checked herself)—at least
Of any one who talked with her awhile.
And so that day when she observed the Priest
Eye them so keenly with his crafty smile,
Although deceived a moment by his guile,
It roused suspicions, strengthened when she saw
Again, on their returning to the Isle,
He noticed Ranolf from the group withdraw
At sunset; and himself stole off so soon
By the same pathway towards the western wood;
She followed; for the thing could bode no good;
But by another track; had seen him meet
Four men to whom his slightest wish was law,
203
Where they could safely, secretly commune;
Had crept close-up on tiptoe—overheard
Their vile atrocious project every word;
To seize, bind, bear the Stranger to their great
Runanga-house; there leave him bound and wait
The setting of the Moon, till they could take
Their captive to the middle of the Lake,
Where they would throw him overboard, still bound;
And tell her Father next day how they found
The Stranger at his evening meal—with food—
Aye, food! beside the monument that stood
High carved in their most sacred burial-ground
O'er his most famous ancestor's dead bones:
And though a bird sung on it all the while—
Doubtless the spirit of that Chief renowned,
It still could not prevent the outrage vile:—
Would not such impious sacrilege astound
The boldest?—how aloof the crime they viewed
With hair on end, tongues to their palates glued
In speechless horror, motionless as stones:
But how his Ancestor's insulted Shade
With vengeance dire the deed profane repaid;
For when the Stranger launched his boat again
There was no ripple on the watery plain;
Yet scarce a spear-flight had he left the bank
Before his boat without a breeze capsized,
And with it—he with scarce a struggle—sank;
For all his powers that Spirit had paralyzed.
This was the plot concerted then and there;
And next she noted where his boat they hid
204
And Miroa was to bring it, as she bid,
Round to a spot they presently would reach,—
Yes! there she saw them waiting on the beach!
The rest he knew. “But now, O Stranger, haste!
Fly to your skiff—O not a moment waste
In words—already, see! the Moon is low—
Away, before your flight those traitors know!”
He turned to thank her—would not take her nay;
Despite her struggles clasped her to his breast,
And ere from his embrace she broke away
Upon her lips a shower of fervent kisses prest.
Despite her struggles clasped her to his breast,
And ere from his embrace she broke away
Upon her lips a shower of fervent kisses prest.
VI.
O in all climes and every age a token
Of one bright link for suffering mortals left
With the Eternal and Divine unbroken—
By all Earth's strain and tears untarnished and unreft!—
O tempting—time-worn—ever-during theme—
That first fond kiss of Love! first dazzling gleam
When two surcharged electric Love-clouds meet—
Flash Paradise into the mutual dream
Of rapt twin-spirits in a lightning-stream,
And blend in blissful rest their soul-entrancing heat!—
Most surely is the Heav'n-glimpse visible there,
When some young creature, innocent as fair,
Supreme Civilization's tender heir,
Such first faint utterance of true love may dare.
The wondrous, pure, envelopment divine
Of fearful awe and maiden scruples fine—
That trembling kiss has broken through it now,
Like the first crocus peeping through the snow.
Oh timid touching of a terrible joy
Whose sweet excess would almost ask alloy!
First hesitating step within the range
Of unimagined worlds—enchanted—strange!—
Ah! break off there, young throbbing hearts! Ah stay,
Let that ecstatic dawn ne'er darken into day!
The quivering brilliance of that hour so tender,
Love's disc emerging o'er the horizon's rim,
Does not its molten palpitating splendour
Leave vulgar Noon and its refulgence dim?
Oh might that Morn its freshness ne'er surrender,
But still in blinding innocency swim!—
Vain thought!—save one such bud of bliss, unblown—
And laws that rule the Universe were gone!
Of one bright link for suffering mortals left
With the Eternal and Divine unbroken—
By all Earth's strain and tears untarnished and unreft!—
O tempting—time-worn—ever-during theme—
That first fond kiss of Love! first dazzling gleam
When two surcharged electric Love-clouds meet—
Flash Paradise into the mutual dream
Of rapt twin-spirits in a lightning-stream,
And blend in blissful rest their soul-entrancing heat!—
Most surely is the Heav'n-glimpse visible there,
When some young creature, innocent as fair,
Supreme Civilization's tender heir,
Such first faint utterance of true love may dare.
The wondrous, pure, envelopment divine
Of fearful awe and maiden scruples fine—
205
Like the first crocus peeping through the snow.
Oh timid touching of a terrible joy
Whose sweet excess would almost ask alloy!
First hesitating step within the range
Of unimagined worlds—enchanted—strange!—
Ah! break off there, young throbbing hearts! Ah stay,
Let that ecstatic dawn ne'er darken into day!
The quivering brilliance of that hour so tender,
Love's disc emerging o'er the horizon's rim,
Does not its molten palpitating splendour
Leave vulgar Noon and its refulgence dim?
Oh might that Morn its freshness ne'er surrender,
But still in blinding innocency swim!—
Vain thought!—save one such bud of bliss, unblown—
And laws that rule the Universe were gone!
But now, the kisses prest with youthful passion
On Amohia's lips were not alone
The first those lips from one she loved had known,
They were the first she ever felt at all!
A novel mode—a strange too fervent fashion,
Of salutation or caressing this!
What aid, what safeguard to her side to call,
This subtle soft assailant to repel,
This cunning and insidious foe—a kiss!
Was it not thrice too thrilling? might not well
This meeting of the lips and breath appear,
Spirit to spirit—soul to soul to bring
Too dangerously close—too fondly near?
Through joining lips heart seemed to heart to cling;
And had not breath and spirit but one name—
In hers, as many a rougher tongue, the same?—
But she has torn herself away—“Oh go,
Ranoro, only go! haste—haste, or they
Will track us here!” She could,—she would not say
For fear more than those choking words, although
Such briefest farewell seemed a knell of woe.
“Farewell, then, dearest! till we meet once more!”
He said, and pushed off quickly from the shore.
On Amohia's lips were not alone
The first those lips from one she loved had known,
They were the first she ever felt at all!
A novel mode—a strange too fervent fashion,
Of salutation or caressing this!
What aid, what safeguard to her side to call,
This subtle soft assailant to repel,
This cunning and insidious foe—a kiss!
Was it not thrice too thrilling? might not well
This meeting of the lips and breath appear,
Spirit to spirit—soul to soul to bring
Too dangerously close—too fondly near?
Through joining lips heart seemed to heart to cling;
And had not breath and spirit but one name—
In hers, as many a rougher tongue, the same?—
206
Ranoro, only go! haste—haste, or they
Will track us here!” She could,—she would not say
For fear more than those choking words, although
Such briefest farewell seemed a knell of woe.
“Farewell, then, dearest! till we meet once more!”
He said, and pushed off quickly from the shore.
VII.
She gazed unmoving—watched his boat depart,
With desolation dragging at her heart.
Just then the ill-omened Moon withdrew behind
A sable cloud-stripe, sudden, as if dropped—
Dead Nun! into a coffin snowy-lined.
Then swelled her heart with tears her pride had stopped;
Weeping she stole the silent trees among,
Weeping reproved her weeping with a song;
For the spontaneous song her sadness moaned,
Provoked the very weakness it disowned;
Racking her bosom with its feigned relief,
And bitter comfort that redoubled grief.
With desolation dragging at her heart.
Just then the ill-omened Moon withdrew behind
A sable cloud-stripe, sudden, as if dropped—
Dead Nun! into a coffin snowy-lined.
Then swelled her heart with tears her pride had stopped;
Weeping she stole the silent trees among,
Weeping reproved her weeping with a song;
For the spontaneous song her sadness moaned,
Provoked the very weakness it disowned;
Racking her bosom with its feigned relief,
And bitter comfort that redoubled grief.
1
“Leave me! yes, too dear one, leave me!Better now, when least 'twill grieve me!
While unrisen, unconsuming,
Love's red dawn is but illuming
With faint rays our spirits glooming—
Oh while we can bear to sever,
Let us part and part for ever!
207
Tears unshed and hearts unbroken!
2
“O this feeling! who shall cure it—Teach the Maiden to endure it?—
Where is he, whitebearded, holy,
Who shall lead his daughter slowly
To the waters melancholy?
Lead his love-afflicted daughter
To the still, estranging water?—
Where the pool so gloomy-shining,
Can relieve this love-repining?
3
“She has let it charm too dearly,Lull too fondly, touch too nearly,
That sweet sorrow; now unwilling,
In the wave so soothing, chilling,
Pure, translucent, passion-killing,
He must lave her—chaunting faintly
Hymns so piteous, hymns so saintly!
Then shall cease this yearning—sighing,
With the mystic measure dying.”
VIII.
So parted they—and so they strove apartEach to repress the risings of the heart;
Each to rake out, ungerminant, ungrown,
The seed in fertile soil too richly sown.
Yet in her own despite, it seemed, the Maid,
208
By or about the Stranger; to her breast
Tidings of him like wild birds to their nest
Would fly it seemed as to their natural rest;
The slightest news that floated in the air
By some attraction seemed to settle there;
Nor ever seemed there lack of such, or dearth
Of Fancy's food; for desert wastes of Earth
Blush nectared fruits, and the blue void above
Rains mystic manna but to nourish Love!
| Ranolf and Amohia | |