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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 3 (June 1, 1937)

Wild Ducks in the Shooting Season

Wild Ducks in the Shooting Season.

Fly high! fly high! oh, wild and timid things!
To the far hills
And deeply-hidden, unfrequented pool
Tranquil and cool
Where the dark-berried mokomoko spills
Its leaves upon the stream that softly sings
To damp, earth-scented fern-embowered banks.
How thinned your ranks
Rise higher, bravely-beating outstretched wings!
Upward and onward ‘neath the paling sky
That eastward dapples to the coming morn.
Innocent of all wrong to living thing, From death you fly—
Why was man born
With lust to strike the life from that warm breast?
That asked no greater joy than mating spring
Or brooding motherhood on lowly nest.
Press on! press on! oh, wildly-beating breast
Hidden by boulder and the spreading tree
That tranquil pool for weary wings holds rest

A thrice-blessed sanctuary.

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