The Ends of the Earth.

Let us go out to the ends of the Earth,
Where the clean winds are, and the silent ways,
Where the dream is the same as when time began,
Untouched by the little hand of man,
And the grief that follows his days.

Let us go out to the ends of the earth,
To the cool, high hills, and the fierce, glad sun,
Away from the spite that has sullied our dream;
To the trackless wastes where the far snows gleam,
And the deep quiet rivers run.

Let us go out to the ends of the earth,
Away from the strife and the endless feud
Of man with man. Where the lost ways are,
We shall find our dream in the light of a star,
In the untamed solitude.

—E. Mary Gurney.

* * *

The Model.

I watched an artist building
A galleon of old—
Stern windows rich with gilding
Bluff bows and bilges bold.
With rail and quarter rounded
And every grating there,
As though o'er seas unbounded,
She sailed to roadsteads fair.

Maybe she was a Spaniard—
I watched but did not ask
As he shaped gun and lanyard
Capstan and watercask.
Or else a Dutchman splendid
With carvings on her stern,
Whose high, brass lanterns blended
With heavenly lights that burn.

Maybe they were French riggers
Who set those spars and sails
And made the metal figures
On her belaying rails;
But when I saw the sweetness
Of waterline and sheer
Bespeaking strength and fleetness
And ease to con and steer,

I knew that English builders
Had shaped a ship like this,
Not for doubloons or guilders
Or other selfishness.
This ship was planned and fashioned
For love of ships, by men
Whose bold hearts were impassioned
With hope to sail again.

Where English ships had travelled
By chartless seas and far—
Where men Night's net unravelled
To find new track and star…
Low bows and high decks slanting
Up to her blazoned stern…
I heard her seamen chanting
Sea-songs our landsmen learn.

Because their glory lingers
Who sailed to conquer Spain,
I watched the clever fingers
Fit door and window pane.
Each mast was like a steeple
Of cordage stiff and high…
I seemed to see her people,
All active, running by,

To set the great sails trimly
To hold the winds that blew
Out of the Old World grimly
To bear them to the New.
Dead-eye and rudder pintle
And painted ports were made
By those quick hands, so gentle
And sure of shape and shade.

By what deep urge compelling
Do artists do these things?
Shaping the strong lines, swelling,
Of galleons old that kings
Once sailed in to the thunder
Of guns from ship and shore,
To fill the world with wonder
From Tiber to the Nore.

The impulse is deep-bedded,
A legacy that comes
From days when men bare-headed
Fought to the roll of drums,
On ships all rich with gilding
With bows and bulwarks bold…
I've seen an artist building
A galleon of old.

—Will Lawson.

Spring in New Zealand.

Springtime, fair and joyous, bedecks the earth anew,
From Winter's sombre mantle her lovely face peeps through;
There's the chime of silver cymbals in the laughter on her lips,
Re-echoed from the kowhai's gold, where the tui, nectar sips.

The dew-bespangled bracken, the willow by the stream,
The cuckoo o'er the valley, the patient, plodding team,
Deep conscious of the quickening pulse, the life-tang in the air,
Respond to Nature's stirring touch—dear Homeland thou art fair!

The bush is tinged with emerald, clemat is stars the trees;
There's laughter in the gullies, and song upon the breeze;
There's golden glory everywhere, from garden-plot to plain,
And the music of the daffodils shakes the earth again.
O little sea-girt island, may thy songs ever be
Pure cadences of gladness, distilled from bird and tree:
New Zealand—Homeland—Maoriland, a new song greets the day—
A promise hundredfold fulfilled, a star to light the way.

—Gwenyth Evans.

* * *

Memories.

I sometimes think of kowhai trees
Shimmering in a glen;
Of rata blooms and clematis,
With every now and then
The fluted notes of tuis,
In a glad wild burst of song;
The bell-bird's answering melody—
How sweet the memories throng!

The little spiral coils of smoke
Ascending from the fire,
And lunch for two beside the stream—
What more could heart desire?
A cloth of blue forget-me-nots
Arrayed in vivid hue;
But sweeter than these heav'nly things:
That I was there—with you.

—Odey King-Turner.

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