Monologue For A New Zealander

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 256, 19 May 1944, Page 4

Monologue For A New Zealander

TANDING astride these islands in nonchalant gumboots I see high mountains and low foreheads, And hear the melodious note of the tui Merge with the fans’ lament As yet another outsider comes in on the rails Leaving the spectators sitting. £ Sdiad is the story of islands only half suspended; The Long White Cloud earth-anchored, The peaks no longer virgin. Now we have been rediscovered by’ the U.S. Marine Corps The beaches are no longer deserted. The imprint of the tank and the barbed wire Leave their intricate uncivilised patterns on the national life; Our butter-fat is freely diluted with boogie-woogie Played on a foreign saxophone. E are in 1944 in a land of heroes few of whom are yet at home. We are the Chosen People living in God’s Own Country; Our meat and butter rations are the highest in the world, We have more false teeth per head than any other nation. oh pale ted here I am tempted to ask, What shall we do with these islands? What of the ranges rising taut like muscles Over the belly of the plain? What of the valleys, Fattening the sleek cattle and leaving the farmer weary? What of the cities like brain cells weaving an extraordinary pattern Of commerce over a young body not yet rooted in dishonour? How shall we redeem the not unlovely landscape from the squalor Of the created slum? How shall we handle vice, Who cannot handle blackberry? How shall we check The habitual slothfulness of complacent minds Fed on the three R’s and free apples in State schools Little better than ourselves? How shall we find a faith To meet the brave new world on a free footing, saying: This is our land that does not run ? profit, Here every man can work and live. There is only one way, and that is to work for it. There is only one way, and that is to strive for it. Utopia needs nourishment; Utopia can come only from the con_certed action Of all those who hope and believe and _ WILL that the thing be done. . . can only come in a country as small as this Where every man has a visible stake in the welfare of every other man. ROTHERS, this is an old story, _ but the lament is genuine, For eG carping brings us to the right r t. Scorn is a reat pruner; singe the whiskers of apathy Or else we'll never waken in the Pro-

mused Land,

Anton

Vogt