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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 8 (November 1, 1937)

The New Zealand Warbler

The New Zealand Warbler.

Methinks there is one way
To render back your song,
To set beside your lay
The racked world's clamant wrong.
As he who once invoked his Philomel
Within a Hampstead casement, I might sing
Of labyrinthine horrors, and the knell
That bruited forth the passing of a king;
But let me praise your lyric if I can,
Without the old device of contrast drear.
It was as if swift healing fingers ran
Along a dreamy flute, how far how
near I cannot tell. Your limpid song pervades
Like fountain melody the listening shades.
Your brittle chant has kin
To song of Ariel,
Disturbing from within
The pleasuance where you dwell.
Not yours the housled happiness that seems
The English blackbird's reverie to inform.
You are interpreter of restless dreams.
Not as the sea-birds you announce the storm,
But with an urgent sweetness do you make
Your premonition in the sunlight seem
Like sudden ripples on a silver lake.
Yet while you sing we are sustained in dream
Then with the storm you wilt, and Lo! there comes
Again the menace of Pan's bitter drums.