(Translation.)

Return, return, the spirit of Te Kohi,

To greet me once again

In the shadowy land of dreams.

When you look your last on Te Awamutu

Send back your love to us,

To the lonely ones you ne’er will see again!

And as the railway bears you far away,

O backward turn your gaze;

Like the smoke that backward drifts—ah, me!

Farewell, a fond farewell!

We will pin you both to our hearts

With the pin of love,

The pin that will never rust!

It was a pathetic little song with something of the sentiment breathed in Tom Moore’s beautiful old Irish melody: [[32]]

As slow our ship her foamy track

Against the wind was cleaving,

Her trembling pennant still looked back

To that dear isle ‘twas leaving.

So loth we part from all we love,

From all the links that bind us;

So turn our hearts, where’er we rove,

To those we’ve left behind us.