DREAM OF A SHAGROON.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 601, 7 May 1851, Page 3

DREAM OF A SHAGROON.

“ I had a dream which was not all a dream."— Byron. As I lay upon my bed in the stillness of the night, methought I saw a long train of Pilgrims proceeding from a far country of the West towards an unknown land. On, on they journeyed, till at last they closed their weary wav, and rested them in the strange land. When they looked forth on its mountains and its valleys, its plains and its rivers, they pronounced it to be, indeed, a goodly land, and fair to look upon. They forthwith apportioned unto themselves the country whereon their pilgrim feet now rested, and appointed places for cities, for towns, and for villages wherein they might dwell, themselves, their wives, and their little ones. Some did build them houses of mortar and of clay, of turf and of timber, in all forms fantastic. Some did wander over the mighty plains, while others sat by the sweet fountains of delicious waters whereat they ever and anon did strive to slake their parched throats. I. looked and beheld two beings of a northern aspect, unlike in form and feature —and yet alike—they had one heart and one soul. Long had they sojourned in |tlie land, at peace with the ancient possessors and dwellers of the country, sitting day gby day at the door of their tent to relieve Jthe wants of the wanderer and the wearied. |The Pilgrims looked on them with an evil kind a jealous eye, and said unto them, “ This .be our land, ye shall no longer have place jherein.” But the ancient dwellers said, gr Nay, these be our friends, they have ||veighed us the price of our land, and here they dwell.” So they of the northern Inspect abode there still. They smiled at the Hplgrims, continued to get them liches and Sfeaxp.n mt in the land. » “A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.” saw men of another aspect arrive at the pilgrim-land. Some were fair, others of g||lark and swarthy hue and of determined K»ien, and their embrowned fronts told of ®oil and labour and exposure under sunH&iier skies than those which curtained the gwilgrim-land. They journeyed over the and over the plains, and by the galleys and the streams, and they came unto gjghe inhabitants of the plains, unto the wanHderers and dwellers by the sweet fountains, ®nd said .unto them, “ Ye be a vain and igWiorant people—supine and indolent, ye do p nl y exact usury of the strangers that would -hem habitations in your towns and villySes. This is a pleasant land, and withal Lf oodl y f° r the depasturing of herds and Blocks we shall possess it, and make of it great nation.” So they departed unto B?. e * r own country and returned bringing EF i them oxen and sheep, and horses and yiuies,—only asses they had none—and they Wpi'ead themselves with their flocks and their Bay 8 ° V - Cr hills and over the plains and Ek? le rivers, and the Great Chief welcomed ■ and gave them honor in the land, for

he knew that the riches and the prosperity , of his country depended on the increase of its flocks. The Pilgrims looked with contemptuous eye on this people of strange aspect and of impure blood, and did despise them. Still they stretched them wider and wider o’er the land. The Pilgrims wondered, and while they wondered and were bewildered they wasted away, and the people of strange aspect remembered them as one doth remember a pleasant dream.—Time had passed on. I awoke ; —and, lo I the land which was to have been sacred to the orthodox foot only of a “body of English gentlemen,” was in possession of the “stragglers, the whalers, and the stock-drivers from other settlements.” * Alas ! for the goodly land, —the land of the Canterbury Pilgrims 1 Ko Motinau, April, 1851.