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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 5 (August 1, 1935)

The River

The River.

I am fed by spring and rivulet, by rains
and pale snows thawing,
I accept the humble tribute of a
thousand tiny rills,
I am strong and rude and masculine,
my leaping life-blood drawing
From the everlasting waters of the
everlasting hills.
By the giant forest kauri I have
watched a savage nation
Armed with spear and axe of greenstone,
ages ere the white man came,
And with calm, detached appraisal some
far-distant generation
Yet unborn, almost undreamt of, I
shall gaze on just the same.
Though they dam my surging waters,
though my current be suspended,
I defy the puny human to retard my
destiny
As I flow into the Ocean where my
voice is ever blended
With the everlasting murmur of the
everlasting sea.
Through the City's teeming panic I
glide on aloof, unflurried,
By the sandbanks, through the rushes,
past green fields and Maori pa;
O'er the deeps with oily chuckle,
through the narrows madly hurried
As I bear the full flood waters to the
distant leaping bar.

* * *