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;
But they two of the sport had soon
Grown weary in the glaring noon \
So landed, from the sun's attacks
Their splendour-puckered eyebrows to relax
page 16 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
Or give the skin its velvet suppleness:
So they had loitered objectless,
And chauntiug songs or chatting strayed
Till by his rude associates met
Her simple story told, the Maid
Asked in her turn the Wanderer s name;
page 17 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
"Randró" 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
Against the further hills that lay
In solemn violet-gloom—grim, dark and cold,