Page:Life·of·Seddon•James·Drummond•1907.pdf/408



Thou’rt plucked from us As the flax-shoot is plucked from the bush And held aloft among the mourners. Thou that wert our boast, our pride, Whose name has soared on high, Thy people now are lone and desolate.

Indeed thou’rt gone, O Friend! Thou’rt vanished like our ocean-fleet of old— The famed canoes, Atamira, Hotutaihirangi, Taiopuapua, Te Roro-tua-maheni, The Araiteuru! and Nuku-tai-memeha, The canoe that drew up from the sea This solid land.

Wi Pere began again, and all his people chanted with him:—

Affliction’s deepest gloom Enwraps this house, For in it Seddon lies Whose death eats out our hearts. ’Twas he to whom we closest clung In days gone by.

O whispering north-west breeze, Blow fair for me, Waft me to Poneke, And take me to the friend I loved In days gone by.

O peoples all and tribes, Raise the loud cry of grief, For the Ship of Fate has passed Port Jackson’s distant cape, And on the all-destroying sea Our great one died.

The final scene in the “tangi-hanga” was a dramatic climax. Both Maoris and Europeans had been wrought up to a deep feeling by the songs, the high-pitched cries of farewells, and