Maori Death Song!

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 392, 10 August 1889, Page 3

Maori Death Song!

During the tangitor the late Wetere Te Perenga many old poems wore sung by the mourners. One is hete appended, which has been sung 1 on similar occasions -with but slight- alterations dui-ing many generations past. In- the Maoii language- are some beautiful poems full of noble thoughts, and dressed in the most expressive language. Many t of them would do credit- to the g^reat bards of Europe or the classic singers of the ancient world. A true poem has never yet been oroduced by servile imitation of past writers — it muct cbrrie from the heart of the singer —-it 'must be racy of the soil. In these isles of the South especially in the rank of literature we worship far fcoo much the great, of distant lands. Writers look far. o'er the sea for inspiration which they might find at home. In the heroic work of colonisation — in th,e building up of a great nation— in our snow-clad peaks and noble A'alleys— in our burning lakes and burning mountains, and in the romantic legends of a dyine race may be fqund inspiration- enouch for a hundred Illiads.