CCXXXI
OUR HERITAGE
A perfect peaceful stillness reigns,
Not e’en a passing playful breeze
The sword-shaped flax-blades gently stirs:
The vale and slopes of rising hills
Are thickly clothed with yellow grass,
Whereon the sun, late risen, throws
His rays, to linger listlessly.
Naught the expanse of yellow breaks,
Save where a darker spot denotes
Some straggling bush of thorny scrub;
While from a gully down the glen,
The foliage of the dull-leaved trees
Rises to view; and the calm air
From stillness for a moment waked
By parakeets’ harsh chattering,
Swift followed by a tui’s trill
Of bell-like notes, is hushed again.
The tiny orbs of glistening dew
Still sparkle, gem-like, ’mid the grass;
While morning mist, their Mother moist,
Reluctant loiters on the hill,
Whence presently she’ll pass to merge
In the soft depths of the blue heav’ns.
This fertile Isle to us is given
Fresh from its Maker’s hand; for here
No records of the vanished past
Tell of the time when might was right,
And self-denial weakness was;
But all is peaceful, pure, and fair.
Our heritage is hope. We’ll rear
A Nation worthy of the land;
And when in age we linger late,
Upon the heights above life’s vale,
Before we, like the mist, shall merge
In depths of God’s eternity,
We’ll see, perchance, our influence
Left dew-like, working for the good
Of those whose day but dawns below.
Alexander Bathgate.
MONTGOMERY
CCXXXII
TO ONE IN ENGLAND
I send to you
Songs of a Southern Isle,
Isle like a flower
In warm seas low lying:
Songs to beguile
Some wearisome hour,
When Time’s tired of flying.
Songs which were sung
To a rapt listener lying,
In sweet lazy hours,
Where wild-birds’ nests swing,
And winds come a-sighing
In Nature’s own bowers.