Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/109
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The Old Place.
73
Clear’d I have, and I’ve clear’d an’ clear’d, yet everywhere, slap in your face,
Briar, tauhinu, an’ ruin! God! it’s a brute of a place.
. . . An’ the house got burnt which I built, myself, with all that worry and pride;
Where the Missus was always homesick, and where she took fever, and died.
Briar, tauhinu, an’ ruin! God! it’s a brute of a place.
. . . An’ the house got burnt which I built, myself, with all that worry and pride;
Where the Missus was always homesick, and where she took fever, and died.
Yes, well! I’m leaving the place. Apples look red on that bough.
I set the slips with my own hand. Well—they’re the other man’s now.
The breezy bluff: an’ the clover that smells so over the land,
Drowning the reek of the rubbish, that plucks the profit out o’ your hand:
That bit o’ Bush paddock I fall’d myself, an’ watched, each year, come clean
(Don’t it look fresh in the tawny? A scrap of Old-Country green):
This air, all healthy with sun an’ salt, an’ bright with purity:
An’ the glossy karakas there, twinkling to the big blue twinkling sea:
Ay, the broad blue sea beyond, an’ the gem-clear cove below,
Where the boat I’ll never handle again, sits rocking to and fro:
There’s the last look to it all! an’ now for the last upon
This room, where Hetty was born, an’ my Mary died, an’ John . . .
Well, I’m leaving the poor old place, and it cuts as keen as a knife;
The place that’s broken my heart—the place where I’ve lived my life.
I set the slips with my own hand. Well—they’re the other man’s now.
The breezy bluff: an’ the clover that smells so over the land,
Drowning the reek of the rubbish, that plucks the profit out o’ your hand:
That bit o’ Bush paddock I fall’d myself, an’ watched, each year, come clean
(Don’t it look fresh in the tawny? A scrap of Old-Country green):
This air, all healthy with sun an’ salt, an’ bright with purity:
An’ the glossy karakas there, twinkling to the big blue twinkling sea:
Ay, the broad blue sea beyond, an’ the gem-clear cove below,
Where the boat I’ll never handle again, sits rocking to and fro:
There’s the last look to it all! an’ now for the last upon
This room, where Hetty was born, an’ my Mary died, an’ John . . .
Well, I’m leaving the poor old place, and it cuts as keen as a knife;
The place that’s broken my heart—the place where I’ve lived my life.