David McKee Wright: Verses about Nature

Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn,
Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn;
It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang,
The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang
When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea
'The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free.'

The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away,
All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better
I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.

Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky.

And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know,
Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow;
All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea,
But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me.

There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking in bloom
I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom.
Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May,
But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey;
While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted
haze of the sea,
To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free.

The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom,
The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom
Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue,
Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life
running through;
And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me
Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be.

The moon is bright, and the winds are laid, and the river is roaring by;
Orion swings, with his belted lights low down in the western sky;
North and south from the mountain gorge to the heart of the silver plain
There’s many an eye will see no sleep till the east grows bright again;
There’s many a hand will toil to-night, from the centre down to the sea;
And I’m far from the men I used to know—and my love is far from me.

Where the broad flood eddies the dredge is moored to the beach of shingle white,
And the straining cable whips the stream in a spray of silver light;
The groaning buckets bear their load, and the engine throbs away,
And the wash pours red on the turning screen that knows not night or day;
For there’s many an ounce of gold to save, from the gorge to the shining sea—
And there’s many a league of the bare brown hills between my love and me.

Where the lines of gorse are parched and dry, and the sheaves are small and thin,
The engine beats and the combine sings to the drays that are leading in,
For they’re thrashing out of the stook to-night, and the plain is as bright as day,
And the fork-tines flash as the sheaves are turned on the frame of the one-horse dray;
For many a hand will toil to-night, from the mountains down to the sea;—
But I’m far from the lips of the girl I love, and the heart that beats for me.

The trappers are out on the hills to-night, and the sickly lantern-shine
Is mocking the gleam of the silver moon in the scrub on the long trap-line;
The tallies are big on the rock-strewn spur, and the rattling clink of the chain
Comes weirdly mixed from the moon-bright hill with the whistling shriek of pain;
For many a hand will toil to-night where the tussocks are waving free;—
But it’s over the hills and over the plain to the heart that beats for me.

The stars are bright, and the night is still, and the river is singing by,
And many a face is upward turned to gaze at the moon’s bright eye.
North and south, from the forest deeps to the heart of the silver plain,
There’s many an eye will see no sleep till the east grows bright again;
There’s many a hand will toil to-night by shining land and sea.
O moonlight, bear my message of love to the heart that beats for me.

Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn,
Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn;
It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang,
The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang
When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea --
"The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free."

The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away,
All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay --
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better -- I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.

Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky.

And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know,
Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow;
All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea,
But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me.

There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking
   in bloom
I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom.
Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May,
But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey;
While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted
   haze of the sea,
To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free.

The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom,
The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom
Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue,
Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life
   running through;
And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me
Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be.

Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know
The cause why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the press of courts, whereso they go,
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Of lordly looks, wrappèd within my cloak,
To will and lust learning to set a law:
It is not for because I scorn or mock
The power of them, to whom fortune hath lent
Charge over us, of right, to strike the stroke.
But true it is that I have always meant
Less to esteem them than the common sort,
Of outward things that judge in their intent
Without regard what doth inward resort.
I grant sometime that of glory the fire
Doth twyche my heart. Me list not to report
Blame by honour, and honour to desire.
But how may I this honour now attain,
That cannot dye the colour black a liar?
My Poynz, I cannot from me tune to feign,
To cloak the truth for praise without desert
Of them that list all vice for to retain.
I cannot honour them that sets their part
With Venus and Bacchus all their life long;
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart.
I cannot crouch nor kneel to do so great a wrong,
To worship them, like God on earth alone,
That are as wolves these sely lambs among.
I cannot with my word complain and moan,
And suffer nought, nor smart without complaint,
Nor turn the word that from my mouth is gone.
I cannot speak and look like a saint,
Use willes for wit, and make deceit a pleasure,
And call craft counsel, for profit still to paint.
I cannot wrest the law to fill the coffer
With innocent blood to feed myself fat,
And do most hurt where most help I offer.
I am not he that can allow the state
Of him Caesar, and damn Cato to die,
That with his death did scape out of the gate
From Caesar's hands (if Livy do not lie)
And would not live where liberty was lost;
So did his heart the common weal apply.
I am not he such eloquence to boast
To make the crow singing as the swan;
Nor call the liond of cowardes beasts the most
That cannot take a mouse as the cat can;
And he that dieth for hunger of the gold
Call him Alexander; and say that Pan
Passeth Apollo in music many fold;
Praise Sir Thopias for a noble tale,
And scorn the story that the Knight told;
Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale;
Grin when he laugheth that beareth all the sway,
Frown when he frowneth and groan when is pale;
On others' lust to hang both night and day:
None of these points would ever frame in me.
My wit is nought-I cannot learn the way.
And much the less of things that greater be,
That asken help of colours of device
To join the mean with each extremity,
With the nearest virtue to cloak alway the vice;
And as to purpose, likewise it shall fall
To press the virtue that it may not rise;
As drunkenness good fellowship to call;
The friendly foe with his double face
Say he is gentle and courteous therewithal;
And say that favel hath a goodly grace
In eloquence; and cruelty to name
Zeal of justice and change in time and place;
And he that suffer'th offence without blame
Call him pitiful; and him true and plain
That raileth reckless to every man's shame.
Say he is rude that cannot lie and feign;
The lecher a lover; and tyranny
To be the right of a prince's reign.
I cannot, I; no, no, it will not be!
This is the cause that I could never yet
Hang on their sleeves that way, as thou mayst see,
A chip of chance more than a pound of wit.
This maketh me at home to hunt and to hawk,
And in foul weather at my book to sit;
In frost and snow then with my bow to stalk;
No man doth mark whereso I ride or go:
In lusty leas at liberty I walk.
And of these news I feel nor weal nor woe,
Save that a clog doth hang yet at my heel.
No force for that, for it is ordered so,
That I may leap both hedge and dyke full well.
I am not now in France to judge the wine,
With saffry sauce the delicates to feel;
Nor yet in Spain, where one must him incline
Rather than to be, outwardly to seem:
I meddle not with wits that be so fine.
Nor Flanders' cheer letteth not my sight to deem
Of black and white; nor taketh my wit away
With beastliness; they beasts do so esteem.
Nor I am not where Christ is given in prey
For money, poison, and treason at Rome-
A common practice used night and day:
But here I am in Kent and Christendom
Among the Muses where I read and rhyme;
Where if thou list, my Poinz, for to come,
Thou shalt be judge how I do spend my time.

My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,

Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endurèd too much pain;
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse

That when the furrows swimmèd with the rain,
She must lie cold and wet in sorry plight;
And worse than that, bare meat there did remain

To comfort her when she her house had dight;
Sometime a barley corn; sometime a bean;
For which she laboured hard both day and night

In harvest time whilst she might go and glean;
And where store was stroyèd with the flood,
Then well away! for she undone was clean.

Then was she fain to take instead of food
Sleep, if she might, her hunger to beguile.
'My sister,' quod she, 'hath a living good,

And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile.
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry
In bed of down; the dirt doth not defile

Her tender foot, she laboureth not as I.
Richly she feedeth and at the richman's cost,
And for her meat she needs not crave nor cry.

By sea, by land, of the delicates, the most
Her cater seeks, and spareth for no peril.
She feedeth on boiled bacon meet and roast,

And hath thereof neither charge nor travail;
And when she list, the liquor of the grape
Doth glad her heart till that her belly swell.'

And at this journey she maketh but a jape;
So forth she goeth, trusting of all this wealth
With her sister her part so for to shape,

That if she might keep herself in health,
To live a lady while her life doth last.
And to the door now is she come by stealth,

And with her foot anon she scrapeth full fast.
Th' other for fear durst not well scarce appear,
Of every noise so was the wretch aghast.

At last she askèd softly who was there.
And in her language, as well as she could,
'Peep!' quod the other. 'Sister, I am here.'

'Peace,' quod the towny mouse, 'why speakest thou so loud?'
And by the hand she took her fair and well.
'Welcome,' quod she, 'my sister, by the Rood!'

She feasted her, that joy it was to tell
The fare they had; they drank the wine so clear,
And as to purpose now and then it fell,

She cheerèd her with 'How, sister, what cheer!'
Amids this joy befell a sorry chance,
That, well away! the stranger bought full dear

The fare she had, for, as she look askance,
Under a stool she spied two steaming eyes
In a round head with sharp ears. In France

Was never mouse so fear'd, for the unwise
Had not i-seen such a beast before,
Yet had nature taught her after her guise

To know her foe and dread him evermore.
The towny mouse fled, she know whither to go;
Th' other had no shift, but wonders sore

Feard of her life. At home she wished her tho,
And to the door, alas! as she did skip,
The Heaven it would, lo! and eke her chance was so,

At the threshold her silly foot did trip;
And ere she might recover it again,
The traitor cat had caught her by the hip,

And made her there against her will remain,
That had forgotten her poor surety and rest
For seeming wealth wherein she thought to reign.

Alas, my Poynz, how men do seek the best
And find the worst, by error as they stray!
And no marvail; when sight is so opprest.

And blind the guide; anon out of the way
Goeth guide and all in seeking quiet life.
O wretched minds, there is no gold that may

Grant that ye seek; no war, no peace, no strife.
No, no, although thy head were hooped with gold,
Sergeant with mace, hawbert, sword, nor knife,

Cannot repulse the care that follow should.
Each kind of life hath with him his disease.
Live in delight even as thy lust would,

And thou shalt find, when lust doth most thee please,
It irketh straight and by itself doth fade.
A small thing it is that may thy mind appease.

None of ye all there is that is so mad
To seek grapes upon brambles or breres;
Nor none, I trow, that hath his wit so bad

To set his hay for conies over rivers,
Ne ye set not a drag-net for an hare;
And yet the thing that most is your desire

Ye do mis-seek with more travail and care.
Make plain thine heart, that it be not knotted
With hope or dread, and see thy will be bare

From all affects, whom vice hath ever spotted.
Thyself content with that is thee assigned,
And use it well that is to thee allotted.

Then seek no more out of thyself to find
The thing that thou hast sought so long before,
For thou shalt feel it sitting in thy mind.

Mad, if ye list to continue your sore,
Let present pass and gape on time to come,
And deep yourself in travail more and more.

Henceforth, my Poynz, this shall be all and some,
These wretched fools shall have nought else of me;
But to the great God and to his high doom,

None other pain pray I for them to be,
But when the rage doth lead them from the right,
That, looking backward, Virtue they may see,

Even as she is, so goodly fair and bright;
And whilst they clasp their lusts in arms across,
Grant them, good Lord, as Thou mayst of Thy might
To fret inward for losing such a loss.