I.

page 355

2.

See, see you the glare,
0 Riri, the glare?—
How the flames leap in air,
Blocdlstaining the leaden-hued murkiness scowling
O'er the high Western hills where the tempests arc howling.
Paparata, Wainúku, with thunderclouds growling?—
—No fire, no flashes.
Erelong shall be there,
No life-spark or love-light on mountain—in vale;
Not a sound of despair,
Sob of wail-
But the blackness of ashes,
The silence of Death,
Over Mókoi-ahía.

II

This storm of war by Kangapo was brewed:
?Twas he had roused this raging multitude
Of Uri-wéra, Nati-pórou—all
The restless spirits turbulent and rude
Amid the neighbouring tribes, South, East or West
He found, or made, obedient to his call:
For stung by Tangi's cool disdain—his breast
Black with foul bile that Amo could arrest
His schemes by flight; and worst, that such a prize
Should by this chance-sent Stranger be possessed—
One whom he would so heartily despise,
But that he hated him so much, and feared,—
Aye, feared!—he could no more endure those eyes
That met his own so calmly and appeared
To look right through his soul and life of lies,
So high and safe above his sorceries-
More than the hound the Moon's unmoving gaze
Fixed on him mutely till he howls—and feels,
How through his canine consciousness it steals—
The fascination of those searching rays,
That read his inmost thoughts, know all his ways.
And fix him all the more, the more he bays:—
Stung with such rabid jealousy and pain,
Less for his own loss than the other's gain:—
page 359 For he was of a nature Hate could move
More deeply even than successful love;
And even his Love burnt livid, like the flames
Of liquids lit for joy in Christmas games,
With bitter selfishness?twas so imbued;
While Hate that could through Love's triumphant mood
Survive, on baffled Love would surely prey
And batten into boundless life and play:—
With alt these feelings fuming thus, the Priest
Had sought out Tangi's many secret foes
And hollow friends; these—most ia peace retained
By dread of Tangi, and as great at least
Of powers himself from his dark Atuas gained—
Were prompt to seize whatever chance arose,
That seemed to promise surety of success
Against a Chief, whose frank blunt haughtiness
Left many a rankling grudge, in hearts that owned
His chieftainship while backed by strength; and more
In neighbours not dependent; most of whom
Could always point, besides, to some heirloom
Of injury—ancient grievance safe in store
Kept to produce, parade as unatoned,
Harangue on and grow wild about, whene'er
Interest might prove a breach was worth their care.
And now that Priest's defection—proffered aid
To Tangi's foes, such tempting juncture made!
That sorcerer's help, to warn, foresee, foretell,
And ever keep at hand, whate'er befel,
The fresh reserve of some religious spell
The fiercest Atua's favour to compel—
With such ally what could against them be
The force or fortune of the "Wailing Sea"?—
And readier even than these for reckless raid
page 360 Was many a youth with jealous fury fired,
Who, when that liquid landslip set her free
From bonds the "tapu" had around her knit,
To Amo's hand had fruitlessly aspired.
So, mustering quick in arms—sharp lances fit
For thrust or whirl; flat spears with cleaving blade
Of iron-hard wood; smooth clublets of green jade
Whale's bone or black obsidian: and, though few,
The white man's lightning weapons dearly prized
For such death-dealing powers, swift, safe, and true
As made all slaughter's ruder tools despised:—
—Bearing of berries dried sufficient store,
Hinau—karaka, sun-cured fish and maize—
Their siege-provisions for not in many days,
As trusting to catch Tangi unprepared
And take his fortress by surprise before
His distant friends could to the rescue pour:—
—Dragging—(by dint of desperate labour, shared
Among thick-crowding, oft-renewed relays—
A hundred straining limbs and voices timed
As one, by that wild chaunt in chorus chimed)—
Or carrying bodily—their big canoes,
O'er hill and dale, with fierce incessant toil,
And frantic ardour nothing could infuse
But rampant greed secure of blood and spoil:—
—Leaving the friends of Tangi as they passed—
Too weak alone each hamlet, to withstand
The headlong progress of so large a band,—
Within their palisadoes shut up fast:—
Thus had the host with hopes of victory flushed,
Through Tangi's country unimpeded rushed;
And now were camped by Rotorua's Lake
In swarms resolved his island-fort to take,
page 361 Under the leadership of one, by far
The boldest, vainest that had joined the war-
Arid "Whetu-riRi "named—"The Angry Star."

III

Nor deem that Priest had wholly laid aside
The object of his passion and his pride
So long—his native tribe's success and power.
Incensed to be so baffled and defied,
His aim in giving Tangi's foes their hour
Of partial triumph, was but to reduce
The Chieftain's haughtiness till he should be
More pliant to his own ascendancy.
These crowds were tools and creatures for his use;
For well he knew whenever he might please,
He could the tumult he had raised appease;
Upon their superstitious fears could play,
And fright his new adherents from the fray
With well-invented omens of dismay.
This crooked course to so concealed an end,
Did to his mind his project recommend;
?Twas doubly dear to him to win his will
By secret exercise of sinuous skill;
The consciousness of cunning mastery made
A guerdon of success almost as dear
As aught for which his cunning schemes were laid.
Yet would he not even then, with insight clear,
Deliberate purpose to himself confess,
With cool deceptive art to forge or feign
Omens and signs sinistrous, to restrain
The assailants at the height of their success;
But he had taught himself to think and feel
The Atuas ever favoured his appeal—
page 362 Could with a little management be brought
To give him mystic aid whenever sought.
And at the outset, glad was he to find,
Tangi's own acts to aid his plans inclined:
Fur the old Chief was so devoid of fear,
When rumours of invasion reached his ear
By foemen such as these, the thought he spumed,
A notion too absurd to entertain;
And still refused, when surer news he learned,
With obstinate and absolute disdain,
To sanction against danger threatening theace,
Any unwonted measures of defence.
So when the storm broke o'er him, and he found
The tide of War advancing all around,
He gathered hastily a sturdy band
Of staunch adherents readiest to his hand:
And on that island hill-cone, girt and swathed
In tiers, with terrace, ditch and smooth-scarped bank,
Where'er its natural slope less steeply sank;
Each terrace a successive fighting stage;
Behind each fosse, a bristling palisade
Of posts with carved and monstrous heads arrayed,
Red-ochred, grim, and grinning scorn and rage;—
There they ensconced themselves to wait unscathed
Till succours should be hurried up by sure
And faithful emissaries swift despatched;
There, in their fortress, as they felt, secure—
Withdrawing from each ditch its wooden bridge,
Lifting each terrace-ladder o'er its ridge,
Each gate closed fast—there scornfully they watched.
Behind the walls, each movement of the foe;—
Or frantically darting in and out
The palisades, kept rushing to and fro
page 363 With wild-tossed limbs and yell and taunting shout;
Or wasting at long range a charge or two
Of precious ammunition, if it chanced,
Prowling about, a prying war-canoe
Close to the isle too temptingly advanced;
Or some marauding, reconnoitring band
Upon the garden-level dared to land.—
Thus, keeping ever at the boiling fret
The fury that could find scant outlet yet,
Thus did they shout, from morn to even close,
Or dance defiance of their swarming foes.

IV

Twice had the foe made fierce attack;
With slaughter twice been beaten back;
For Tangi's staunch and stalwart band—
The skill and valour far-renowned
That marked the veteran's cool command—
The lines that wound that hill around—
And last, not least, unknown before,
The dreaded weapon Ranolf bore
That through the press could swiftly hurl
A shower of deaths at every whirl-
All these together made a sum
Of tough impediments no rush
Of Uri-wéra's hosts could crush,
Or arts, so far essayed, o'ercorne.
Yet for a fresh assault, one more
Ere they should give the contest o'er,
They roused, revived their flagging force
And spirit dashed by ill-success;
Revolving every rude resource
Of savage war's ingeniousness;
page 364 Each tried, untried, expedient
Old lore could teach, new craft invent;
And plying all the wild man's ways
Their forced factitious wrath to raise
And blow their fury to a blaze.

V.

—But who can dwell with much delight
On details bare of barbarous fight?
War stripped of that superb disguise
Of splendour which to youthful eyes
Gives Terror more than Beauty's charms,
And o'er Death's revel scatters rife
Stern raptures of sublimest Life?
The marshalled ranks—far-glittering lines;
And square on square compact and dense—
Each layer-like slab of life intense
That firm as bristling rampart shines
In such high-drilled magnificence!
The single tramp and serried arms
Of myriads moved like one together!
The bayonet-blades—each row of steel
Soft waving like a brilliant feather,
As in broad lines the regiments wheel—
How in the sun they flash and quiver!
The ponderous flying guns that cling,
Like savage birds of heavy wing,
And clutch at every vantage ground,
And with volcano smoke and sound
Exulting boom and blaze away;
Or flit when they no more may stay,
As vultures lagging leave their prey!
page 365 Then Music's thrilling witchery,
From Matter's gross enthralment ever
Potent the spirit to deliver,
Fans all the Soul to fever-heat;
The big drum's distant windy beat,
Tumultuous-heaving stormy sea,
Over whose plunging waves alway
The fife's light notes dance up like spray!
And trumpet's soar and bugles call;
Or, loud in fits far rattling, comes
The glorious long-resounding shiver
Of those impatient kettle-drums!—
—But more than Music—more than all
Imperial pomps and prides that shine
To make Destruction's Art divine,
Is that display, the grandest still
To any human lot can fall,
When Genius with consummate skill
Wields the ennobling sword it draws
Resistless in a righteous cause:
Such as our wondrous Warrior drew,
To Duty God had set him to,
Ever like an Archangel true!
Whose Soul to that unsetting Sun—
The denselier rolled the storm-clouds dun
Of Fate—still soared on steadier wings;
A soul, a mien—godlike—serene—
'Mid tumbling thrones and trembling kings!
—Or that high-passioned One—our loved
Sea-King—whose frail war-shattered frame
Seems, like the Sun's disc in its flame,
Lost in his Spirit's blaze of Fame;
That fiery soft great heart sublime,
page 366 Who with his stately white-winged crowd
Of lightning-bearing Sea-Swans, moved
Majestical from clime to clime,
And, wrapped in one sky-reaching shroud
Of dense white level-jetted cloud,
With grand sea-thunders swept away
His country's foes where'er they rose;—
Who, with such cool and crushing ease
Like chessmen used to place and play
His crowded floating fortresses;—
Who like a rushing Comet, prest
Across the World from East to West
And back, in that gigantic race
Of Warfleets o'er the Atlantic Main;
When wondering Europe saw him chase
Like doubling hares that scud in vain,
The navies of proud France and Spain!—
—Or He, whose dazzling deeds make pale
(As well says one who paints the fray)
Old marvellous times of casque and mail—
Dense arrow-flights through thronging knights
At Agincourt's and Cressy's fights;
Whose might on great Meánee's day
Wiped out again the Cábul stain
That red retreat-one slaughter! he
Who that audacious victory
With his heroic handful tore
From twice as many thousand foes
As he had hundreds; so, dispersed
The hovering hundred thousand more
Of ruffian-hordes with razor-swords
Keen-panting on their prey to close;
Flung to the winds the sway accurst,
page 367 And rooted up no more to rise
The regal stews and robber sties
Of those Emeers whose quaking fears
Erelong through Asia's wide heart ran;
Till every turbaned Tyrant there
And bloodstained bandit in his lair
Shook at his very name—unscreened
Though wastes and mountains intervened,
Though round him raged a ruthless clan,
Against this terrible true Man,
This justice-wreaking holy fiend,
This demon 'brother of Shay-tan '
Fighting God's battles!—Ay, indeed!
These men were the right genuine stuff
To rule a World—a hero-breed—
High minds, such as by instinct feed
On mighty tasks—Souls large enough
For Empire! not the creeping crew
Whose rule our England yet may rue;
Whose huckstering God is only Gold—
That 'cheaply bought' be 'dearly sold,'
Their sordid creed and single heed;
Whose grovelling zeal—-their Altar still
The counter, and their Ark the till—
At that base shrine would sacrifice
Power, honour, Empire!—all the ties
That keep us one; whatever wakes
The patriot glow, the pride of race;—
All that, with love of Order, makes
A people of a populace,
And any people great! whate'er
Of quick and kindling sympathy
With England's children everywhere—
page 368 Our common claim to one great name,
One heritage of storied Fame,
It was our boast, our strength to share;—
That conscious thrill of kindred blood
Which false refinement feigns to raise,
Evaporating all its good,
Into a fine and feeble phase
Of vague and vain philanthropy;
But kept within true range of kin,
The more it can inspire, expand,
So much more glorious, powerful, grand,
Becomes each human brotherhood;
And ever, just as each has grown
To greatness or remained unknown,
Did each this genial warmth possess
Defective or in bright excess—
The savage, for his tribe alone,
The Roman for a World—-his own!
But these cold-hearted theorists cower
At Empire thrust upon them—slink
From their compatriots in the hour
Of danger; nay, that moment seize
With peevish pettiness to rail
At all the points (and numerous these)
Where those who seek their succour fail—
Not aid them first, in such a case
As men had done in their high place
Who nobly ruled a noble; race!
Aye, noble still! not: apt to shrink
From that 'self-help' these selfish lords,
Unhelping, save with worthless words,
Consign them to with shameless taunt;
Let that plain fact, no idle vaunt,
page 369 Their deaths, those gallant ones! attest.
So oft struck down in wretched war
By savage pride upon us prest:—
Attest it his, among the rest—
(Be thus much said for kinship's sake)
Who sleeps the sleep no more to wake
On earth, 'mid loveliest scenes afar
Where Tonga-riro's snows disgorge
Their flames by blue Te Aira's lake-
Young, kindly, chivalrous St George!
Whose honour-fired aspiring brain
Before that instant-blighting ball
Flashed into darkness without pain,
As in his wonted "dashing style "
(His comrades said) his men he led
Against the palisadoed wall
Of that last prophet-cannibal
Whose torturing tastes—impostures vile—
Our rulers' sympathies beguile!
So swiftly his bold course was run—
That ardent spirit's duties done,
To whom the night and day were one,
As through dense forest-glooms he crashed,
Through flooded rivers dauntless dashed,
Or galloped past thick fern, close by
Where murderous scouts would lurking lie—
To keep our friends in heart, disclose
The machinations of our foes;
With cool, clear-sighted, fiery zeal
Unceasing!—ah, too soon the seal
Was set upon that life unknown,
That bud of promise nipt unblown!
The making of a hero marred,
page 370 If ever, then, when evil-starred
That young career by death was barred!
—But not in vain! no, though our bane,
These rulers, should renounce the power
For good such deaths are dared to dower
Their weakness with; though they, the same,
New conquests should alike disclaim,
And old assured dominion—nay,
Should fling away the world-wide Lands,
For ends that own God's clear commands
Entrusted to their trembling hands—
Birthright of England's swarming sons,
Won by her mighty deathless dead,
Her heroes' blood like water shed!—
But let such soulless puppet-play
Of rabble-rid mock-rule endure,
Such crawling creeds thy councils sway
Unchecked—unchanged—O then be sure,
England, my Country! nought avails
Thy wealth, thy commerce; he who runs
May read upon thy whited wall,
The 'Mene, Tekel' of thy fall!
Thin hide thy head for shame—then say
And sigh—thy soaring Sun has past
Its zenith; own thyself at last-
Weighed in the fitting trader-scales,
Found wanting; then confess thy day
Of greatness done—thy glory gone—
Thy peddling kingdom passing fast away!—

These thoughts in loyal hearts are rife—
But let not here their shadows dark
Intrude—where need was but to mark
page 371 How poor a thing is human strife
Deprived of aids that seem designed
To make even War a Worship—make
Its mad turmoil the aspect take
Of some ennobling rite where Mind
Lords it o'er Matter—Soul o'er clay—
With absolute predominance
And solemn deep significance;
Until the very Battlefield
Becomes a Temple for display
Of spirit-proving deeds death-sealed
Of high Self-sacrifice, sublime
Devotion; and the bloody sod
Grows eloquent of something more
Than Duty—something beyond Time—
In recompense of Life and Soul
Flung freely down, unstinted, whole,
To magnify, uphold, restore
The cause of Good—and therefore God!

But War in this stark savage way
Looked too much like mere lust to slay;
Of its majestic mask laid bare
The face of naked Murder seemed to wear;
Its hateful visage tempered by no glance
Of lofty purpose or superb Romance.

VI.

Well—all the warrior-speeches had been made;
Now, with a coarsely classic dignity
Of grave debate and stern; and full parade
Of flowing dog-furred mantle, and blunt spear
With head tongue-shaped and feathery-ruffed, inlaid
page 372 With glistening shelly eyelets pearly-clear;
Now in rank virulence of savagery
Complete—each naked speaker as he shrieked
In hoarse harsh tones of mad complaint and rage,
Impatient, like a wild-beast in its cage,
To and fro fretting at a short quick run,
With which each fragmentary fierce appeal,
Each furious burst was ended and begun;
And every time he turned his angry heel
Slapping his tattoed thigh; until he reeked
And foamed; and breathless, voiceless, faint,
Was forced at last to yield the task, to paint
And passionate his griefs, to younger tongues,
Less wearied limbs and unexhausted lungs.
And then they danced their last war-dance to gain
The physical fever of the blood and brain
That might their dashed and drooping spirit sustain,
Nor let their flagging courage fail or flinch.
Then formal frenzy in full play was seen;
The dancers seemed a mob of maniacs, swayed
By one insane volition, all obeyed,
Their mad gesticulations to enact
With frantic uniformity, exact
As some innumerably-limbed machine,
With rows of corresponding joints compact
All one way working from a single winch:
The leaping, dense, conglomerate mass of men
Now all together off the ground—in air—
Like some vast bird a moment's space—and then
Down, with a single ponderous shock, again
Down thundering on the groaning, trembling plain!
And every gesture fury could devise
And practice regulate, was rampant there;
page 373 The loud slaps sounding on five hundred thighs;
Five hundred hideous faces drawn aside,
Distorted with one paroxysm wide;
Five hundred tongues like one, protruding red,
Thrust straining out to taunt, defy, deride;
And the cold glitter of a thousand eyes
Upturning white far back into the head;
The heads from side to side with scorn all jerking
And demon-spite, as if the wearers tried
To jerk them off those frantic bodies working
With such convulsive energy the while!
—Thus—and with grinding gnashing teeth, and fierce
Explosions deep in oft narrated style,
Those vollied pants of heartfelt execration;
Or showers of shuddering hissing groans that pierce
The air with harsh accordance, like the crash
When regiments their returning ramrods dash
Slurp down the barrel-grooves with quivering clang
In myriad-ringing unison—they lash
Their maddened Souls to madder desperation!—
Thus all the day their fury hissed and rang;
So groaned, leapt, foamed, grimaced they o'er and o'er;
Till all were burning, ere the Sun should soar,
Against that stubborn Fort to fling themselves once more.