Te Rimurapa

Here within sound of the boundless ocean
tuis called, and the riroriros,
bellbirds chimed over scarlet flax-flowers,
kakas screamed to the rising moon.
Never was land so lost and lonely,
never the Six Gods' work so fair;
never the silver clash of water
rang more purely through the darkling air.

And then one day, one great eventful morning,
more than a magic thousand years agone,
lean, scarred and noble, weary, wistful-eyed,
down the grand ara moana he was blazing
to his land of lovely solitude;
Kupe, the old sea-rover, came sailing, sailing,
Kupe, the wandering dreamer of the seas.

H.G.C.