SELECT POETRY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 165, 11 March 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

SELECT POETRY.

LINES ON THE BATTLE OP EANGAEIEI: Fought on Friday, Nov. 30, 1863. Wiiebb, broad and deep, Waikato’s noble stream Eolls through primeval forests dense and drear, There let mo roam, in pensive mood to scan The silent beauties of those wild domains ■Where late the prowess of the British race Was measured in the fierce and sanguine fight With cunning Maoris thirsting for the prey. All hail! Hail Cameron! Hail, thou good old man, Scion of heroes! IVho more brave than thou ? While that stern light raged ’neath thy eagle eye Perchance thy thoughts were far away among Thine own loved hills, and in ancestral halls An instant thou didst wander, where the spund Of the shrill pibroch used, in days gone by, To rouse thy martial lire. How ditf'rent now! The tattooed savage yells his fiendish cry; The loud hurrah, the Biiton's headlong charge; The Maori eyeball’s glare unearthly hate; The levelled tubes, the glittering fence of steel; The blood, the groans, the dull and sick’ning tread Of human feet timelng the dance of death! The battle’s won, and Cam’rou’s name shalllive A heirloom to our hearts, a sacred trust; And those brave men who shared the glorious toil. Who bled and died on Eangariri’s heights, Their mem’ry is embalmed within our souls— Those living urns that teem with joys and griefs. Adown these lovely glades, whore sunlight falls In golden streams, gilding these grand old trees, I wander sadly, as the shadows mark The resti ig-plaee, beneath the blooming turf. Where many of my countrymen sleep in peace. W,Q -