Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/179
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The Noosing of the Sun-God.
143
And receded and moaned
Like a babe that is chidden!
The rope that was spun
In the White World of Maui
With blessing and cursing
Curled on the dazzling
Neck of Te Ra.
Like a babe that is chidden!
The rope that was spun
In the White World of Maui
With blessing and cursing
Curled on the dazzling
Neck of Te Ra.
“A pull for the living
That gasp in the light!
A pull for the dead
In abysses of Po!
A pull for the babes
That are not, but shall be
In the cool, in the dawn,
In the calm of hereafter!
Tiraha, Te Ra!”
That gasp in the light!
A pull for the dead
In abysses of Po!
A pull for the babes
That are not, but shall be
In the cool, in the dawn,
In the calm of hereafter!
Tiraha, Te Ra!”
The sky was a smother
Of flame and commotion.
Low leaped the red fringes
To harass the mountains.
And Maui laughed out:—
“Hu, hu, the feathers
Of the fire-bird of Rangi!”
But the rope of the blessing,
The rope of the cursing,
It shrivelled and broke.
He stooped to the coils
And he twisted them thrice,
And thickly he threw it
On the neck of Te Ra.
Of flame and commotion.
Low leaped the red fringes
To harass the mountains.
And Maui laughed out:—
“Hu, hu, the feathers
Of the fire-bird of Rangi!”
But the rope of the blessing,
The rope of the cursing,
It shrivelled and broke.
He stooped to the coils
And he twisted them thrice,
And thickly he threw it
On the neck of Te Ra.
“Twice for the living!
And twice for the dead!
And twice for the long hereafter!”
And twice for the dead!
And twice for the long hereafter!”