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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 7 (October 1, 1935)
New Zealand Verse
New Zealand Verse
“Matangi” 6 A.M.
All ye who so love Beauty come ye hither:
The sun's red hands clutch at the mountain walls
While Nelson's waters, wide and mistless, mirror
The precious moment ere he leaps and calls
And casts his silver mantle o'er her mirror,
His glistening gauzy glittering films of white,
To shield the truths of damask rose and crimson
Behind the blind albino eyes of light.
Her world's a petal-bowl of dull red jaspar,
Low-lipped and limned by painted walls of jade,
A bowl of petals from a pink rose shaken
On waters blue between each rosy shade.
And like the island, greyly irridescent,
Her breath-mote floats amid the petal-stains
With seven white butterflies adance around it,
Like yachts who net the seas with opal chains;
And yon's the Boulder Bank within the mirror,
In that rich-powdered finger's idle sweep
That carves the whole reflection into echoes,
As sea-clouds carve the heavens from the deep;
White candle stands for Beacon; and to westward
Those heavy chains of turquoise seem like hills;
And lo, within this tinted mirror could not
Those spilling pearls be slow descending gulls?
For this is Beauty's mirror, Truth reflecting
By transient tint and moulding interchange,
How Beauty is a moment's mortal vision
Shaped in the ebb and flow of colour's range.
Yet, having seen her thus, we fain must leave her—
The shock-head sun's athwart the mountains now
With bronze arms clutching peak and craggy foot-hold
And careful pallor creeps upon her brow.
* * *
The Brown Bird.
I heard a brown bird singing in the East,
When tiptoe Evening stole across the skles,
And fairy fingers tinted fading clouds
With magic hues and laid the day to rest.
I felt the cool fresh thrill of twilight's touch,
And watched the first star blink its far-off light.
I heard a brown bird singing—oh, the thrill
Of fine, soul-burning transport in my heart
At that grand, swelling throb of harmony!
I stopped and listened; great black hills watched by,
And ceased eternal vigil through the night
To hear those rich notes poured from God-lent throat,
Which burst themselves in love-sighs—ruled the earth.
I heard a brown bird singing, and the trees
Bowed to his melody, and softly swayed,
And whispered sweetly to the sobbing stream.
I listened; and I felt our mystic life
Would finer, grander, more soul-lifting be,
In some infinity of twilit bounds,
Where but to feel, and love, this gift of life,
To glow with warm blood fiery in one's veins,
To live—and cast all other things aside—
Were life itself. That throbbing joy of life
Fast held me with a firm yet loving hand;
I called (fond hope) for immortality,
That I might live, and love my powerful life,
Till endless centuries should fall away,
And crumble, in immensity of time.
Oh, but to feel clear Evening's soft white mist
Which sinks like snow upon the yielding earth,
Is crowning ecstacy, and mighty joy,
When thrilling bird-songs float through quivering air.
Enthralled, enchanted, singing in my soul,
The sweet ideal of ecstacy and love
Burst through my heart, pulsating like a flame—
To live, and love the savage joys of life,
Till all Eternity shall roll away!
* * *
Petrol Speaks.
“Speeding along a radio beam in the stratosphere at 1,000 miles an hour, it will take the busy man a little more than an hour to fly from Australia to New Zealand in A.D. 2,000.” —Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.
I am the force that sets the pace where the roaring aeros fly.
Mine is the pulse that beats the time where the cars go racing by;
Soul of the hauling motor-van, life of the skyward ship,
Time stands back to the petrol sweep and the mighty petrol grip.
I am a tale a maiden spun to an Eastern king of old,
The Magic Carpet wove from dreams and out of space unrolled.
I am a madman's babblings and a wise man's long despair;
I am the Vision mystics saw in the Angels of the Air.
Swifter than swallows ever flew I drive the aeroplane;
Only to lightning I give way, for lightning sets the main;
But I will challenge the lightning yet at flash of its highest volt,
For I am Petrol, yet unknown, and God's own thunderbolt!