To the Lost Huia.
Where are you, dark wildling, that
once abounded
In our ferned green island?
Mute is the frail note that once resounded
From the cloistered highland
Where flickered the tantalising gleam
Of your white-tipped tail-feather,
As you dipped to drink from a dwindling stream
In throat-parching weather.
For your pied plume's gage, the brown man sought
To compass your undoing
With the sweet, cleverly-simulated note
Of your own mate's wooing.
Yet brown man was kin to bird that was pied;
And though you might fly him,
You returned on the wing ere the echoes died,
And lived to defy him.
But the white man came, and molested your wooing
With his incessant clamour—
With stroke of axe; with wresting and hewing;
And ring of hammer.
And you fled in affright, and found new terrene
Afar from intruder
But pursuing, he ravished your fastness again
With assault ever ruder.
And he smote and burned, and pillaged and scattered-Agog for plunder—
As if, under God, man were all that mattered …
Oh, pitiful blunder!
Full late we come seeking. Now we would recompense;
Guard you, and cherish.
Oh, hear us speak in the accents of penitence—
Now—lest you perish!
(No frail answer filters down the dwindled stream,
Though it's thirsty weather …
And no more flickers the teasing gleam
Of a white-tipped black feather.)

—A. J. Waldie.

* * *

Taking Long Leave.
We drain the year and hurl the cup away,
And splashing stride through shallower tides of time,
We unwanted, heedless of soft song or chime,
Restless in the mother murmur of the day.
My heart, exultant stranger, leading me Is leaping to the hidden, luring cry Of a wind-wild spirit, calling from the sky;
Of the foam-lipped savage, booming from the sea.
Eager at their calling, fretful of the sun
With lips of whispering dreams to haunt my sleep
Until exultant heart another promise keep,
And bride and mother shall I find as one.
Arms enlocked, we'll roam and laugh, we splendid two,
And speak in tongues of winds, with whisper and shout,
The whole but crying—crying, crying out
My wild need of you—my wild need of you.

—Henry Brenan.

* * *

So Quiet a Thing.
I had not dreamed
Love was so quiet a thing.
Peaceful as fields
At summer eventide—
Fragrant and still
With little gleams of light
Along the happy grass;
With trees asleep,
And hills like dreams of faery,
Where silver rivers run.
I had not dreamed
I should not know
Love's coming.
My love, in dreams, was winged.
All passion gleamed
In his fine face.
I thought
“Ah! When we meet
Love's passion will possess my soul—
Will rise and sweep me from my feet!”
I had not dreamed
That love could catch me unawares,
And cover me with rest.
I had not dreamed
Love could be you,
And I be glad
That it was so!
Love's passion lost,
Its splendour and its mad unrest
All dreams of youth!
Love, merged in you,
A stillness—an abiding peace,
Forever more.
Beloved! I think that, after all,
Your love will do!

—E. Mary Gurney.

* * *

Sonnet.
Mount Egmont.

She towers above our human hopes and fears,
Holding her majesty aloof from all.
When, in the slumb'rous evening, shadows fall,
And, silver on her snow, the moon appears,
She gazes, spellbound, on a million tears
Of angels' lamentations, crystal-small….
and smiles, as though she cannot quite recall
The mystery of music that she hears.
It is a silent melody that swells
Across her silent peak and silent snow.
And, could we listen well enough. sweet bells
May faintly echo—such enchantment glow
Into our souls, that self-ambition dies …
Mt. Egmont smiles with wisdom in her eyes.

—Vivien Fairhall.

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