Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/26

subtropical forests and summer seas of Auckland, with the South Sea Islands only four days’ steam away.

Nearly all the Maorilanders have put some of their efforts to painting, each in his own way and with his own limitations, a portion of the splendour that lies around them. Half this volume could have been filled with verses in praise of Maoriland, and the standard the editors set themselves not been lowered. It would, in fact, have been possible to fill the book entirely with such pieces—and in that case, it is true, some of it would have been very bad verse indeed: but it would have formed the sincerest book of verse in the “Canterbury Poets” series.

With a view to securing some balance of subjects, however, verses of scenery have often been passed over where it was possible to represent a writer otherwise without doing an injustice. But scenic poetry has not been written out in New Zealand. More compelling than the return of Spring, more instant to be praised than the beauty of women, the Bush and the hills of Maoriland are still calling their lovers to paint their colours and sing their songs. As our painters’ studios brim with colours of fern and kauri, so do our poets’ pages with songs of tui and makomako: and every age will welcome its own interpreters of nature, as long as the sun