I

Before the faint wide smile of dawn, so wan
And grey, to steal up Night's sad face began,
Crammed in canoes bold Whetu-riri's host
With favouring breeze had to Mokoia crossed.
With hearts high-beating to the strand they spring.
Each band behind its Chief; without a check
Hasten through grove and garden—many a bed,
That late in such luxuriant neatness spread,
Of melons, maize and taro—now a wreck.
The outer palisades the foremost reach;
Take the positions prearranged for each;
And close around the Fort, a swarming ring:—
Then—as no challenge came—no warrior stirred,
And not a sound about the Fort was heard;
At once, like one—six hundred throats or more
Sent thundering skyward such a sea-like roar
As old Mokoia never heard before:

"How long, how long
Will your courage sleep?
When will it wake from its slumber deep.
When will your fury be fierce and strong?—
page 375 O but the tide it murmurs low,
Low and slow
Beginning to creep;
'Twill be long
'Twill be long
Ere it roar on the shore
In the strength of its flow

Take with spirits heavy-laden,
Take your leave of wife and maiden;
Press, ha! press in last embraces
To your own their weeping faces!
Press them paling,
Weeping, wailing—
All your efforts unavailing!
for see, for see,
The brave and the strong
At your gateways throng!
See, see, how advancing in lines victorious,
All your efforts scouting, scorning,
To the fort you lurk dismayed in,
Brave and strong
We tramp along!
Ha! we come! exulting, glorious
As those mountain-summits hoary!
Proud as mountain-peaks arrayed in
The magnificence of Morning
We come for glory—glory—glory!
We come! we come!—"

Stern—silent—in determined mood
Within those loop-holed walls of wood,
Alert, be sure, old Tangi stood;
page 376 He and his stalwart warriors true,
Alert, well-armed and watchful too!
Each short sharp-edged batoon of stone
Grass-green, or white of polished bone,—
That from the hand no foe might wring
The weapon at close grips—was bound
With thongs each sinewy wrist around;
But loose the long-armed axe was left,
Both hardwood blade and pointed heft—
A dagger, or an axe to swing,
Just as the warrior thrust or cleft.
The precious muskets, rude and few,
Their blunted flints well-chipped anew,
All primed and cocked, were pointing through
The palisades, behind whose breast
Keen, eager, fierce, the clansmen pressed,
Like wild-beasts waiting for a spring.
But yet no tongue the stillness broke,
No shout of wild defiance woke;
For to that threatening, thundering strain,
The sole reply the Chief would deign
Was one brief proverb, as his hand
Waved silence to his eager band;
And that firm lip, comprest before,
A haughty smile contemptuous wore;
" Ay, come!" he growled—" come on to shell
Cockles on Kátikáti's shore! "
That long-disputed dangerous land,
As every Maori knew so well,
Fit for no tool but spear and brand;
On whose contested sands and rocks,
Who came got nothing but hard knocks;
For, plucked from that long home of strife
page 377 A limpet might have cost a life!
Hence grown a gibe for all who set
Their hearts on gain they ne'er would get.

But soon as Tangi's taunt was flung,
And while the roar redoubled rung,
The assailing ranks disparting wide,—
There forward rushed—-a gloomy wood,
In doubtful light the dawning gave,
It seemed, or some great tidal wave!
A hundred of the bravest brave
Swept darkling up in order good;
Each in his left hand holding high
A bundle huge of brushwood dry
And withered fern that hid him quite—
Him and the fire-brand in his right.
Against the fort their heaps they piled,
And soon the flames were raging wild;
For still the breeze that brought them o'er
Blew freshly from the further shore.
It lighted up, that sudden glare,
The fort—the shore—the swarming, bold,
Blue, ghastly faces writhing there
With wrath and frenzy uncontrolled!
The fern became a mass of fire,
A brilliant yeast of surging gold;
And whirling darkly from the pyre
The smoke in russet volumes rolled,
With showers of sparks and frond and spray
Red-hot, or floating filmy-grey.
Old Tangi, Ranolf, and his train
Of warriors strove, and strove in vain
page 378 To heave the blazing heaps aside;
No naked limbs or clothed could bide
That heat—no lungs could long sustain.
The smoke that, blinding, stifling, dense,
Drove ever thicker through the fence.
So forced from that first outwork, they
With teeth that gnashed in scornful rage,
And shouts of fury, burst away
Leaping and clambering up to wage
The fight upon a higher stage;
Headlong as alligators bounce
With water-snakes and bull-frogs harsh,
Out of some rank rush-covered marsh,
In river-depths to plunge and flounce—
In Hayti or the Isle made glad
With springs perennial crystal-fed—
When some crab-hunting negro-lad
Has fired their reedy crackling bed.