The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature

by Jane Stafford

  Lay untrammelled likewise,

  Unceasingly swept by transmarine winds.

  In a very little while, it may be,

  When our impulsive limbs and our superior skulls

  Have to the soil restored several ounces of fertiliser,

  The Mother of all will take charge again,

  And soon wipe away with her elements

  Our small fond human enclosures.

  (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Erica’

  Sit down with me awhile beside the heath-corner.

  Here have I laboured hour on hour in winter

  Digging thick clay, breaking up clods, and draining,

  Carrying away cold mud, bringing up sandy loam,

  Bringing these rocks and setting them all in their places,

  To be shelter from winds, shade from too burning sun.

  See, now, how sweetly all these plants are springing

  Green, ever green, and flowering turn by turn.

  Delicate heaths, and their fragrant Australian kinsmen,

  Shedding, as once unknown in New Holland, strange scents on the air

  And purple and white daboecia—the Irish heather

  Said in the nursery man’s list to be so well suited

  For small gardens, for rock gardens, and for graveyards.

  (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Detail’

  My garage is a structure of excessive plainness,

  It springs from a dry bank in the back garden,

  It is made of corrugated iron,

  And painted all over with brick-red.

  But beside it I have planted a green Bay-tree,

  —A sweet Bay, an Olive, and a Turkey Fig,

  —A Fig, an Olive, and a Bay.

  (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Response’

  When you wrote your letter it was April,

  And you were glad that it was spring weather,

  And that the sun shone out in turn with showers of rain.

  I write in waning May and it is autumn,

  And I am glad that my chrysanthemums

  Are tied up fast to strong posts,

  So that the south winds cannot beat them down.

  I am glad that they are tawny coloured,

  And fiery in the low west evening light.

  And I am glad that one bush warbler

  Still sings in the honey-scented wattle – – –

  But oh, we have remembering hearts,

  And we say ‘How green it was in such and such an April,’

  And ‘Such and such an autumn was very golden,’

  And ‘Everything is for a very short time.’

  (1929)

  Retrospection

  Robin Hyde, from ‘Arangi-Ma’

  But this is what she thought, if brown minds think:

  ‘The pakeha rat ate up the old rah mourie,

  So traps are set no more for boundaries;

  And fainter, where the pigeons come to drink,

  Grow the old trough-trails, and the berries patter

  Ceaselessly under the spreading puriris.

  Nobody now can find the fallen kauri

  That marked off Hepe’s lands. Against the sun

  Our old men sit with midnight in their eyes,

  Plots of green corn spring up before their face,

  And each will brag the story, each is wise

  Beyond his fellows … each one knows he lies.

  We cover up our speechless hearts with chatter,

  Nobody now can name the ancient place.’

  (1935–36; 2003)

  Pat Lawlor, from Maori Tales

  ‘A Modern Maori’

  My friend, Te Tohera, is an educated native, a finished product of Te Aute College, and a graduate of the NZ University, with a BA degree. He successfully practises one of the professions, is a member of several clubs, is married to the daughter of an Irish doctor, and is the father of a son and a daughter.

  Yet, the Maori, ancient and modern, is forever out-cropping in his everyday actions. Superstitious? Well—

  When we go on vacation with Te Tohera’s family, we always choose a little bay on the coast where the line fishing is generally good; but we have to watch our step.

  One day Tohera (he has an English name professionally) was fishing from the beach when my wife quite innocently stepped over his line. That was the end of his morning’s fishing, and he never used that line again. The woman had cast a spell on it; the line had become tabu.

  One of the children, on another occasion was digging up the sand near where Te Tohera was fishing. He retired. The god of the sea would be angry. The digging roughened the water, brought the wind, and drove the fish away.

  The Toheras were spending the evening with us when there flew into our room a big brown moth, one of that species that ‘flops’ hard and scares womenfolk. I killed it.

  Immediately, Te Tohera said good-night, and went home, although the evening was still young.

  I learned subsequently that my Maori friend went home and grieved over the incident. That moth might have been a special visitor to Te Tohera—an ancient ancestor come to see how he was doing, as Maori ancestors frequently visited their descendants in the form of that species of moth.

  ‘The Spirit of his Fathers’

  Some of the Maori members could be very entertaining, especially after a supper of mutton-bird and beer at Bellamy’s. Notable among them was Wi Pere, from the Hau Hau territory. There had been an angry debate on a Maori Land Bill. Wi Pere thought he smelt bare-faced robbery of native rights, which had been granted under the much-abused Treaty of Waitangi. He wound up a fiery speech by threatening every European trespasser on those rights with a bullet. Then he almost paralysed the House by shouting, ‘And to hell with the damned pakeha.’ Barclay, the Maori interpreter, paused, doubting whether he should translate the violent denunciation, but he did. The Speaker let it go, but called the patriot to order, and the House took no notice. It very rarely did when one of the Maori representatives arose on his legs. Of the picturesque Maori group of that period, Wi Pere, Hone Heke, Henare Kaihau and Tame Parata have long since set sail in the long canoe. They were all hard-doers, but jolly good company.

  (1926)

  Eileen Duggan, ‘The Bushfeller’

  Lord, mind your trees to-day!

  My man is out there clearing.

  God send the chips fly safe.

  My heart is always fearing.

  And let the axehead hold!

  My dreams are all of felling.

  He earns our bread far back.

  And then there is no telling.

  If he came home at nights,

  We’d know, but it is only—

  We might not even hear—

  A man could lie there lonely.

  God, let the trunks fall clear,

  He did not choose his calling;

  He’s young and full of life—

  A tree is heavy, falling.

  (1937)

  Frank S. Anthony, ‘Some Pioneering’

  Not everyone has a farm like mine! This is a good job, really, because I don’t think everyone could farm my class of land, and I am quite sure everyone couldn’t live on the returns from it.

  It is a beautiful place. There is one little hill near the house, the rest is perfectly flat rimu and white pine swamp. The hill comes in handy to keep the herd on when the swamps are under water. I can feed them on hay there until the floods abate.

  I will admit that when I bought this place I was a new chum. The land-agent who took me over the place laid particular stress on the beautiful flat swamps. He said drained swamps were proving to be the most fertile lands in the Dominion. ‘Look at the Piako Swamp.’

  A fellow had told me only the week before that he grew parsnips in the Piako one year 7ft long. So I decided to take the place.

  As soon as I was settled properly, I wired in to the driest part of the swamp, intending to drain it, only there di
dn’t happen to be any outlet for the water, unless I opened up a drain for miles. So I started stumping, instead.

  Three months of galling toil saw me with about two acres partly cleared up. I went to town, bought a nice light plough, and decided to plough it. I had a theory that a light plough would be easier for the horses to pull than a heavier make. I had never done any ploughing, but a young and enthusiastic cousin of mine, who happened along on a visit, decided to stop and see me through the first day. He had done miles and miles of ploughing down on the plains, somewhere or other.

  As soon as my nice, fat, lazy horses got on to that paddock, the fun commenced. One would suppose I was asking them to plough a bottomless morass, the fuss they made. I knew they couldn’t sink down more than a few feet, because during stumping operations I had gone probing about with a crow-bar, and had located a hidden forest just under the one on top. I remember thinking at the time what a good job it was there, as it would prevent stock getting bogged very deep in wet weather. I tried making the horses stand in one place till they had sunk down on to it. I thought that would restore their confidence, but it was no go, so we decided to start ploughing and take some of the freshness out of them with hard work.

  The young cousin had brought over a bottle of beer with him. We thought we would do things properly, so we cracked the top off the bottle and christened the plough ‘Endeavour’. I picked that name. It seemed fitting and rather touching. You know the idea—green fields from barren waste—turning over the virgin soil—exploring the unknown!

  Then we started. I held the handles, the cousin drove the horses. First time round the two acres was a bit of an eye-opener to me. We did it in a few seconds, and when we came to a stop on a dry spot near the gate, the cousin came to light with a suggestion. He thought we should re-christen the Endeavour, and call her the Swallow. He said she was in the air most of the time, and skimmed the little she did plough, and if that was the way she was going to work, his name was the most appropriate. However, I pointed out that she endeavoured to plough a little here and there, and perhaps he hadn’t set her quite right. So he got the spanner, and gave her more depth, and we started again.

  We certainly didn’t skim after that. The Endeavour took the earth, and started to turn a wet and sticky furrow, a foot to eighteen inches deep. This seemed to put the horses on their mettle, and we did slightly better time round than the first go. I remember, as I sailed round that paddock, with my feet just touching ground here and there, thinking high and noble thoughts, like carving a home in the wilderness, and not turning back once my hand was put to the plough. I felt a thrill of pity for the old men, the city dudes, and all those who earned a nice easy living somewhere, because they were not game to come into the back-blocks and live a man’s life. I had it pretty bad.

  Every time we came to the dry patch near the gate we had a spell. We needed it, too, but we called it resting the horses.

  The fourth time round promised to be even quicker time than the others. We started off by striking a root, which by some carelessness on my part had not been taken out when I stumped the piece. The Endeavour creaked, the horses sank—and snorted. Just when things began to look really serious—I thought I was going to lose my team—the root broke with a snap, and the ploughing operations commenced again with considerable vim. The horses tore round that paddock as if it were coated with thin ice, and I may say here, that about this part of the proceedings, I began to get the breeze up. It seemed to me that there was more in ploughing a wet swamp than one would first suppose.

  I glanced at the cousin. He was doing a steady lope beside the plough, the reins half dragging him along. He seemed to be rather enjoying himself. I thought it would be a good plan, next time we stopped, to let him have a turn at the handles for a bit, while I drove. To anyone knowing little about the noble art of ploughing, I might explain that when a single furrow plough, travelling at several miles an hour, hits a solid obstacle, like a root or stump, the jar is pretty considerable, and communicates itself to the man on the handles in no uncertain manner.

  The young cousin didn’t seem to mind how much I got jarred. In fact I caught him once flicking old Bloss with the rein when she seemed inclined to ease up on a dry patch of the paddock. I hadn’t time to remonstrate, because she bounded forward, and just about then we (the Endeavour and me) struck that dry spot. I investigated afterwards, and found it to be a submerged rata tree, 6ft through and about 60ft long. The plough shot straight up in the air, hovered for a bit, and then fell on me, and removed a piece of scalp 2in. by 2½ in.

  After the young cousin had brought me to, by sprinkling me with green swamp water, we had a look round. The old Endeavour was piled up in a most hopeless way. Her bow and cable gear were torn clean off, and we couldn’t try and fit them on again, because the horses had gone home with them. The beam was bent; the coulter buckled. A lot of other little things we didn’t know the names of were broken or twisted, so I thought I wouldn’t do any more ploughing that day.

  We decided to go home. The track hack was strewn with chains, swinglebars, and other gear, and we found the horses on the top of the little hill near the house. They were milling round, snorting, and kicking at all the chains and things they hadn’t shed on the homeward sprint. We had considerable difficulty in quieting them sufficiently to get them untangled. They seemed to think that if they stood still a second, the hill might dissolve under their feet. Both of them were lame, and it was three days before they bucked up sufficiently to hobble off that knoll, and look for nourishment in the swamp again.

  I had to borrow a horse from a neighbour to run my milk to the factory. He said he would lend me a horse, but I wasn’t to use him for ploughing, as he was too fast.

  I agreed to that. Ploughing with fast horses makes my head ache, anyway.

  The young cousin went home next day, and the Endeavour is still over the paddock, stuck in that rata log. Some day, I hope the young cousin will pay me another visit. When he does, I am going to salvage that old derelict, get her patched up at the blacksmith’s, and finish ploughing that two acres. I shall drive the horses, and he can have the handles.

  (1923–24; 1938)

  William Pember Reeves, ‘A Colonist in his Garden’

  He reads a letter.

  ‘Dim grows your face, and in my ears,

  Filled with the tramp of hurrying years,

  Your voice dies, far apart.

  Our shortening day draws in, alack!

  Old friend, ere darkness falls, turn back

  To England, life and art.

  ‘Write not that you content can be,

  Pent by that drear and shipless sea

  Round lonely islands rolled:

  Isles nigh as empty as their deep,

  Where men but talk of gold and sheep

  And think of sheep and gold.

  ‘A land without a past; a race

  Set in the rut of commonplace;

  Where Demos overfed

  Allows no gulf, permits no height,

  And grace and colour, music, light,

  From sturdy scorn are fled.

  ‘I’ll draw you home. Lo! as I write

  A flash—a swallow’s arrow-flight!

  O’erhead the skylark’s wings

  Quiver with joy at winter’s rout:

  A gust of April from without

  Scents of the garden brings.

  ‘The quickening turf is starred with gold;

  The orchard wall, rust-red and old,

  Glows in the sunlight long.

  The very yew-tree warms to-day,

  As the sun-dial, mossed and grey,

  Marks with a shadow strong.

  ‘Tired of the bold, aggressive New,

  Say, will your eyes not joy to view,

  In a sedater clime,

  How mellowing tones at leisure steal,

  And age hath virtue scars to heal,

  And beauty weds grey Time!’

  He speaks.

  G
ood wizard! Thus he weaves his spell.

  Yet, charm he twenty times as well,

  Me shall he never spur,

  To seek again the old, green land,

  That seems from far to stretch a hand

  To sons who dream of her.

  For is my England there? Ah, no.

  Gone is my England, long ago,

  Leaving me tender joys,

  Sweet, fragrant, happy-breathing names

  Of wrinkled men and grey-haired dames,

  To me still girls and boys.

  With these in youth let memory stray

  In pleasance green, where stern to-day

  Works Fancy no mischance.

  Dear pleasance—let no light invade

  Revealing ravage Time hath made

  Amid thy dim romance!

  Here am I rooted. Firm and fast

  We men take root who face the blast,

  When, to the desert come,

  We stand where none before have stood

  And braving tempest, drought and flood,

  Fight Nature for a home.

  Now, when the fight is o’er, what man,

  What wrestler, who in manhood’s span

  Hath won so stern a fall,

  Who, matched against the desert’s power,

  Hath made the wilderness to flower,

  Can turn, forsaking all?

  Yet that my heart to England cleaves

  This garden tells with blooms and leaves

  In old familiar throng,

  And smells, sweet English every one,

  And English turf to tread upon,

  And English blackbird’s song.

  ‘No art?’ Who serve an art more great

  Than we, rough architects of State

  With the old Earth at strife?

  ‘No colour!’ On the silent waste,

  In pigments not to be effaced,

  We paint the hues of life.

  ‘A land without a past?’ Nay, nay.

  I saw it, forty years this day.

  —Nor man, nor beast, nor tree:

  Wide, empty plains where shadows pass

  blown by the wind o’er whispering grass