ORIGINAL POETRY. AN INVITATION.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 565, 13 September 1851, Page 3

ORIGINAL POETRY. AN INVITATION.

Come to the Isles— the Southern Isles! There life is fresh, and nature young — In those immeasureable woods, By all the gushing of their floods, One everlasting chant is sung; And birds of every shape and hue, And winds that whisper as they pass, And bending reeds that spring anew Within the damp of the morass, For ever echoing seem to say, "Oh man in bondage far away, "A fair world woos, thee— why delay?" Come to the Isles— the Southern Isles ! There boundless freedom holds her reign, There endless spring for ever showers From her full hands successive flowers ; Far on the uncultivated plain New homes are rising here and there, Like jewels upon beauty's brow, And where before the scene seemed bare Red orchards gleam and harvests glow ; And ever these would seem to say, " Oh man in bondage far away, " A fair world woos thee— why delay?" Come to the Isles—the Southern Isles ! Away —leave grinding desk and loom, Come, be a nation's honored sires, The subject of all future lyres,— Oh come, and when a dying gloom Shall hover o'er that elder sphere, Perchance your children far renown'd, Shall lend a hand to deck the bier Which haply they themselves had found Had you disdained to list the lay Which yet the Southern Islands say, " Oh man in bondage far away, "A fair world woos thee— why delay?" St. George. Auckland, September 9, 1851.