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From Verses...
Lake Kanieri
Blue veined & dimpling, dappled in the sun
Lies Lake Kanieri, like a tired child
Wide-eyed, close clinging to the spacious skirts
Of old Tuhua, the big brawny nurse
On whose broad lap I lie. All else is still.
A bird's near whistle is the only sound
That in the silence beats into my brain
Insistent, shrill. Now is no need to serve
Or suffer or regret: it seems life holds
No future & no past for me but this
Sun-lighted mountain & the brooding bush.
Nor art nor history nor written page
Could touch me now; it is enough to be
And feel the slow & rhythmic pulse of earth
Beat under me; & see the low red sun
Stoop o'er the massive shoulders of the range.
Oh, lone, heroic, melancholy Hills!
Your dim, gaunt peaks stand in the afterglow
Like Duty, stern, implacable & cold;
Remote from the harsh clamour of the plains,
And murmur of men's cities all unheard.
Oh, still & calm; Oh, pure & wise & strong!
My restless heart from your locked hearts shut out,
Leans on your strength & craves the peace you hold—
Peace born of conflict. Ye old Stoic Hills!
Yield up your secrets. On your furrowed fronts
Are scars of fierce upheavals; in your grave,
Deep breasts what dreams are shut? Ye seem to stand
Like pale, impassive monks, whose chill looks hide
Forbidden memories of clinging lips,
Of passion conquered & of pain repressed
Within their breasts congealed. With outlines dim
The hooded slopes, like meek nuns grouped in prayer,
Kneel in the screened cloister of the bush
Dark robed & secret; & the laughing lake,
Smoothed by the slow, cool fingers of the Dusk,
Has coiled herself to sleep. The light is gone,
Save on those heights where Day, grown weak & old,
Close by the dying embers of the sun
Sits like an old man musing on his past.
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