Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/56

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

20

The Dwellings of our Dead.

For some the gully, where in whispers tender,
The flax-blades mourn and murmur, and the slender
White ranks of toi go;
With drooping plumes of splendour,
In pageantry of woe.

For some the common trench where, not all fameless,
They fighting fell who thought to tame the tameless,
And won their barren crown;
Where one grave holds them nameless—
Brave white and braver brown.

But in their sleep, like troubled children turning,
A dream of mother-country in them burning,
They whisper their despair,
And one vague, voiceless yearning
Burdens the pausing air . . .

“Unchanging here the drab year onward presses;
No Spring comes trysting here with new-loosed tresses,
And never may the years
Win Autumn’s sweet caresses—
Her leaves that fall like tears.

And we would lie ’neath old-remembered beeches,
Where we could hear the voice of him who preaches
And the deep organ’s call,
While close about us reaches
The cool, grey, lichened wall.”

But they are ours, and jealously we hold them;
Within our children’s ranks we have enrolled them,
And till all Time shall cease
Our brooding bush shall fold them
In her broad-bosomed peace.