Chorus

"Your mask, your paint, are not mere giddy superfluities
They serve to hide your blithering incongruities."

—Bogle on Skinner's "Ancient Maori."

Music Specially Written by Mr. J. Maughan Barnett.

Now the modern Maori Lion uses corrugated iron
Where his grandsire fenced with warning hand.
With our missionary ardour, yes, we sometimes filled his larder
But mostly got possession of his land.
And the price for being weak was paid to us, the meek,
Who had humbly learned the lesson of the "Bow."
That the cause of man and right may be helped by dynamite.
And the Brave may be the victims of the blow.

Refrain :
And this is a sign that we may know
And prepare the recoil of the bended bow.

Praise the battle-loving fighter who was never such a blighter
As to lease his weapons to a slave.
Though his son may pawn his taiaha and may use our Black Maria,
Yet mighty were the buffets that he gave.
But our Cook could fix his eyes on fields of enterprise
To be won and to be holden by the brave.
For he knew the Union Jack was no shelter for the slack
But a token of the Empire of the Wave.

Refrain :
Let this be a sign that men may know
We are ready the call of the bended bow.