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 Over the noble lumber, the Bramble, the envious Tataramoa Springing up, flourishes green: But with pinion’d crown the Tree-fern See! ’mid growths upheav’d and broken, See a miserable horokio Whose appealing roots drink air!

Root in the rocks, once, fingers in the sea-waves, Surest of swimmers among the eddying surges, Thick grew the Rimurapa, fringing the shore, Thick grew the long-shore kelp: A mat for the feet of the ripples, as the breast of the Pukeko duskily blue: A crown of bright locks to the water, a laugh to the eyes of the sun. And the waters stay’d it, the sun caress’d it; Once, with its long-washing tendrils, With power, it protected the sacred head of a chief. —Storms arose!.... By the sea that fed, by the billows that bosom’d, Tugg’d, torn-up, dragg’d over the biting reef, High on the thirsty sand, What ails thee, O Rimurapa? that tarnish’d and stiff, To the suppling deep thou return’st not? “It is dry, it is brittle; ah, ah, it is dingy, it stinks! Out on the wretched remainder! On my kumara-patch let it perish!” Shall one contemptuously say.