The Coming Of Te Rauparaha

BLUE, the wreaths of smoke, like drooping banners

From the flaming battlements of sunset

Hung suspended; and within his whare

Hipe, last of Ngatiraukawa's chieftains,

Lay a-dying! Ringed about his death-bed,

Like a palisade of carven figures,

Stood the silent people of the village —

Warriors and women of his hapu —

Waiting. Then a sudden spilth of sunlight

Splashed upon the mountain-peak above them,

And it blossomed redly like a rata.

With his people and the twilight pausing;

Withering to death in regal patience,

Taciturn and grim, lay Hipe dying.

Shuddering and green, a little lizard

Made a ripple through the whare's darkness,

Writhing close to Hipe! Then a whisper

On the women's dry lips hesitated

As the ring of figures fluttered backwards;

" 'T is the Spirit-Thing that comes to carry

Hipe's tardy soul across the waters

To the world of stars!" And Hipe, grimly,

Felt its hungry eyes a-glitter on him;

Then he knew the spirit-world had called him;

Knew the lizard-messenger must hasten,

And would carry back a soul for answer.

Twenty days in silence he had listened,

Dumb with thoughts of death, and sorely troubled

For his tribe left leaderless and lonely.

Now like sullen thunder from the blackness

Of the whare swept a voice untinctured

With a stain of sickness; and the women,

Breaking backwards, shrieked in sudden terror,

" 'T is the weird Thing's voice, the greenish lizard,

All-impatient for the soul of Hipe!"

But the warriors in the shadow straightened

Drooping shoulders, gripped their greenstone meres,

And the rhythmic tumult of the war-dance

Swept the great pah with its throbbing thunder:

While their glad throats chanted, "E, 't is Hipe!

Hipe's voice that led us in the battle;

Hipe, young, come back to lead us ever!"

"Warriors and women of my hapu,"

Whirled the voice of Hipe from the darkness,

"I have had communion with the spirits;

Listen while I chant the song they taught me!

"I have seen the coming end of all things,

Seen the Maori shattered 'neath the onrush

Of the white-faced strangers. Like the flashing

Of the Sun-God through the ranks of darkness,

Like the Fire-God rippling through the forest,

Like the winter's silent blight of snowflakes —

Lo, the strange outbreak of pallid blossoms! —

Sweeps this surging wave of stranger-faces,

Frothing irresistibly upon us.

"Lo, the Pakeha shall come and conquer;

We have failed; the Gods are angry with us.

See, the withered autumn of our greatness!

"Old ancestral myths and sacred legends

That we deemed immortal — (priest and wizard

Died, and yet their stories, like a river,

Through the long years ran on, ever changeless!) —

Shall be buried; and the names long given

To each hill, and stream, and path and gully,

Shall be like a yesterday forgotten,

Blown like trembling froth before the sea-breeze.

"And the gods that people all our islands —

This great sea of presences immortal,

Living, real, alert for charm or evil,

Hurrying in every breeze, and haunting,

Heavy-winged, the vistas of the forest,

Deluging the daylight with their presence,

Teeming, flooding, brimming in the shadows —

Shall be banished to their spirit-regions,

And the world be lorn of gods and lonely.

"And the Maori shall no long time linger

Ere, a tardy exile, he shall journey

To the under-world. Yet he shall never

Break before this influx, but shall fight on

Till, a mangled thing, the tide o'erwhelm him.

And my tribe, the mighty Ngatiraukawa,

Had they left one worthy chieftain only

Who could lead my people on to victory,

Who could follow where my feet have trodden,

Might yet rear their name into a pillar

Carved with fame, until their stubborn story

From the mists of legend broke tremendous.

Flaming through the chilly years to follow

With a sunset-splendour, huge, heroic!

"Yes, the time is yours to rear a nation

From one conquering tribe, the Ngatiraukawa;

But my pah is leaderless and lonely;

I am left, the last of Maori chieftains;

And the gods have called me now to lead them

In their mighty battles! There is no one

Worthy now to wield my dying mana!"

So he ceased, and tremulous the silence

Sighed to voice in one long wail of sorrow.

So; it was the truth that Hipe taught them:

None was left to lead them on to victory;

None could follow where his feet had trodden.

Then by name old Hipe called the chieftains —

Weakling sons of that gaunt wrinkled giant,

Stunted saplings blanching in the shadow

Of the old tree's overarching greatness.

One by one he called them, and they shivered,

For they knew no answer to his question,

"Can you lead my people on to victory?

Can you follow where my feet have trodden?"

One by one a great hope burned within them,

And their feeble hearts beat fast and proudly;

One by one a chill of terror took them,

And the challenge on their lips was frozen.

Then the old chief in his anger chaunted

Frenziedly a song of scorn of all things,

And the frightened people of the village —

Warriors and women of his hapu —

Quavered into murmurs 'neath the whirlwind

Of his lashing words; and then he fretted

Into gusts of anger; and the lizard

Made a greenish ripple in the darkness,

Shuddering closer to him. And the people

Bending heard a whisper pass above them,

"Is there none to lead you on to victory,

None to follow where my feet have trodden?"

Lo, a sudden rumour from the edges

Of the silent concourse, where the humblest

Of the village crouched in utter baseness —

There among the outcasts one leapt upright,

Clean-limbed, straight and comely as a sunbeam.

Eager muscles clad in tawny velvet,

Eyes aflash with prescience of his power,

Yet a boy, untried in warriors' warfare,

Virgin to the battle! And untroubled

Rang a daring voice across the darkness,

"Yes, my people, one there is to lead you;

I dare point you on to fame and victory,

I dare tread where Hipe's feet have trodden.

Yea," and prouder sang the voice above them,

"I can promise mightier fame unending;

I shall lead where Hipe dared not tempt you;

I shall make new footprints through the future —

I, the youth Te Rauparaha, have spoken!"

On the boy who braved them stormed the people,

Swept with fear and anger, and they clamoured,

"Who so proudly speaks, though not a chieftain?

Rank and name and fame he has none; how then

Dare he lead when sons of chieftains falter?"

But the boy leapt forward to the whare,

Clean-limbed, straight and comely as a sunbeam,

Eager muscles clad in tawny velvet,

Eyes aflash with prescience of his power,

Swinging high the mere he had fashioned

Out of wood, and carven like a chieftain's —

Aye, and with the toy had slain a foeman!

Flinging fiery speech out like a hailstorm,

"If ye choose me chieftain I shall lead you

Down to meet the white one on the sea-coast,

Where his hordes shall break like scattered billows

From our wall of meres. Him o'erwhelming,

I shall wrest his flaming weapons from him,

Fortify for pah the rugged island

Kapiti; then like a black-hawk swooping

I shall whirl upon the Southern Island,

Sweep it with my name as with a tempest,

Overrun it like the play of sunlight,

Sigh across it like a flame, till Terror

Runs before me shrieking! And our pathway

Shall be sullen red with flames and bloodshed,

And shall moan with massacre and battle!

"Quenching every foe, beneath my mana

Tribe shall stand with tribe, till all my nation

Like a harsh impassive wall of forest

Imperturbably shall front the strangers;

And with frown inscrutable shall wither

All this buzz and stir of stinging insects

That persist about us; then our islands

Garlanded with peace are ours for ever!

"Then the name of me, Te Rauparaha,

And the tribe I lead, the Ngatitoa,

Shall be shrined in sacred myth and legend

With the glamour of our oft-told prowess

Wreathed about them! Think, we shall be saviours

Of a race, a nation! And this island

We have sown so thick with names — each hillock,

Glen and gully, stream and tribal limit —

Shall for ever blossom like a garden

With the liquid softness of their music!

And the flute shall still across the evening

Lilt and waver, brimming with love's yearning!

And the exiled gods and banished spirits

Shall steal back to people all our islands

With their sea of presences immortal,

Living, real, alert for charm or evil,

Hurrying in every breeze and haunting,

Heavy-winged, the vistas of the forest,

Deluging the daylight with their presence,

Teeming, flooding, brimming in the shadows,

Till the world, a tawny world of gladness,

Shall no more of gods be lorn and lonely!

I, the youth Te Rauparaha, have spoken!"

Hipe heard, and, dying, cried in triumph,

"Warriors and women of my hapu,

He shall lead you, he, Te Rauparaha!

He shall do the things that he has promised.

He may fail; but think how grand his failure!

He alone can lift against the tempest

That proud head of his, and hugely daring,

God-like, hugely fail, or hugely conquer!"

Still he spoke, but suddenly the lizard

Made a greenish ripple through the darkness,

And was gone! Upon the long lone journey

To Te Reinga and the world of spirits

It had started with the soul of Hipe!

Then the plaintive wailing of the women

Quavered through the darkness, and a shudder

Took the slaves that in a horror waited

For the mercy of the blow to send them —

Ah! the sombre, slowly-stepping phalanx —

To the twilight world with Hipe's spirit.