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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 5 (August 1, 1938)
New Zealand
New Zealand
Lonely Houses.
What do they dream of underneath the stars,
These lonely houses of the long-dead years?
To eyes of youth shabby and small and spent—
Homes of the pioneers.
Age of the rushing motor, flying ‘plane,
What can you know of space by footsteps won?
A bed of tussocks under star-strewn skies—
To rise and journey onward with the sun.
Yet within all these old and shabby walls
Linger the human dreams and hopes and fears
That pulsed in human hearts—to swell or die—
With the slow-passing years.M
High hopes, strong faith, that far from native lands
Built them a home upon this virgin soil;
Though dust the hands that built, these houses stand—
Battered and lone—mute tribute to their toil.
From the dead past wraith mem'ries linger there;
Was it the stirring wind alone that sighed
When, at the dark of night, the wild ducks call,
Where unseen wekas cried?
Rhythm of hoof-beats on the tussock flats,
Creaking of bullock wagons o'er the plain—
Youth speeding heeds them not—to those old frames,
(One with the past) clear echoes come again.
lEchoes of dreams—life become dreams alone—
Of days and nights when ocean waters rolled,
Grey of Atlantic to Pacific blue, New stars replacing old.
Music of running ropes and bellying sail,
Gulls and white wake behind—or dreams again,
Black dreams, when man-made craft with canvas furled,
Fought and won through the mighty hurricane.
New land, new life!—love, birth and death are there
Beneath the broken roof—some mother young
On that low step before the hingeless door,
Her babe to rest has sung.
Bracken and weed now pierce the rotted floor,
Empty the hearth that lit those early years—
Yet do they bravely stand, their joys to hold;
Those lonely houses of the pioneers.
Colours.
Be glad that God has given you your eyes, that you may see
The beauty of His colours—in a lily's ivory,
In scarlet tinted hollyhock, the pansy's velvet sheen,
In pink tipped cherry blossom, and the cool of grasses green.
In orange petal'd rosebud, and the love flower's misty blue,
In flame of tiger lilies, and the crystal of the dew.
Be glad that you can see the white and gold in daffodils,
The dusky grey of twilight, and the purple of the hills.
The silver of a moonbeam's ray, or spangled cloak of Night,
The pictures in a dawning sky all shot with primrose light.
The wonder of a mystic bridge with arch in rainbow shades,
And the glory of a crimson sky before the sunset fades.
Be glad! from morn's first rosy hue to twilight's silent hush,
That God has given you power to see the colours from His brush.
The Seasons.
Shout hurrah for the gorse on a fair Springtime morn,
When the paddocks and valleys the blooms all adorn;
When little gold patches crown hillock and vale,
And spill all their petals to fashion a trail.
Shout hurrah for a Springtime morn!
Sing hurrah for the brown and the red of the leaves,
And the gold of the corn and the freshly reaped sheaves—
On a crisp Autumn morn when the lanes are aglow,
With the thousands of leaves in a wide, scattered row.
Sing hurrah for a crisp Autumn morn!
Laugh hurrah for the cold on a harsh Winter's day,
When the rain drops are falling to dampen the hay,
And the creeks are all rushing and crystally clear,
There are scents of the grain in the fresh country air.
Laugh hurrah for a harsh Winter's day!
Say hurrah for a day that is scorching with heat,
And the scent of the briar-rose wafted is sweet,
When the grass is burnt brown in each paddock and lane,
So shout for the seasons in turn once again.
Say hurrah for a hot Summer's day!