Musings in Maoriland
Henry Kendall
Henry Kendall.
Fair Austral's eldest daughter veils her face,
And drapes her sunny splendours in the gloom,
Her first-born son of song, in manhood's bloom—
The sweetest singer of her brave young race—
Has joined the Dantesque shadows in the space
Beyond the sapphire arch, and o'er the tomb;
He faded ere the wattle's golden plume
Perfumed the sylvan scenes he loved to trace.
He who had witch'd and charm'd the South'rn lute
Till strains mellifluous swept o'er the land
In floods of euphony; whose soul could shoot
To Nature's heart, and pluck out, at command,
Her secrets and her mysteries, is mute,
The harp has fallen from the Minstrel's hand.