Jessie Mackay poems
Jessie Mackay(1864 - 1938 / Rakaia Gorge)
Ortygia
- by Jessie Mackay 41
IN Ortygia the Dawn land the old gods dwell,And the silver's yet a-quiver on the old wizard well
By the milk-white walls of the Temple of the Moon,
Where the Dawn Maids hallow the red gods' tune,
And old grey Time is a nine-year child,
Back between the rivers ere man was ever 'guiled,
Or the knelling ‘Never, never!' by the cherubim was rung.
It was there, there, there, in Ortygia the young,—
It was there, there, there, in the meadows of the sky
That first we went a-summering, my love of loves and I.
And well I wot the pleasaunce for them that thither go
Is litten with the beacons that the Dawn Maids know,
With their vigil at end in the Temple of the Moon,
And their prayer all prayer for the waked world's boon.
The words they speak in that land are new as the dawn;
The rills that run in that land are diamond, drawn
From the old wizard well where the red gods croon.
And walk you in Ortygia or late or soon,
It is but lovers only that ever you will see;
For every silver wood-king's a trysting tree,
And the dream-flowers are keeping their first high May
For the glad and the glamoured who walk yon way;
And to the summit etherous the track you cannot miss,
Though the hills are dim and sheeny with the rainbow's kiss.
O, we walked the road of iris, my love of loves and I
In Ortygia the young with the red gods by!
The Burial of Sir John Mackenzie
- by Jessie Mackay 34
(1901)They played him home to the House of Stones
All the way, all the way,
To his grave in the sound of the winter sea:
The sky was dour, the sky was gray.
They played him home with the chieftain's dirge,
Till the wail was wed to the rolling surge,
They played him home with a sorrowful will
To his grave at the foot of the Holy Hill
And the pipes went mourning all the way.
Strong hands that had struck for right
All the day, all the day,
Folded now in the dark of earth,
Veiled dawn of the upper way!
Strong hands that struck with his
From days that were to the day that is
Carry him now from the house of woe
To ride the way the Chief must go:
And his peers went mourning all the way.
Son and brother at his right hand
All the way, all the way!
And O for them and O for her
Who stayed within, the dowie day!
Son and brother and near of kin
Go out with the chief who never comes in!
And of all who loved him far and near
'Twas the nearest most who held him dear --
And his kin went mourning all the way!
The clan went on with the pipes before
All the way, all the way;
A wider clan than ever he knew
Followed him home that dowie day.
And who were they of the wider clan?
The landless man and the no man's man,
The man that lacked and the man unlearned,
The man that lived but as he earned --
And the clan went mourning all the way.
The heart of New Zealand went beside
All the way, all the way,
To the resting-place of her Highland Chief;
Much she thought she could not say;
He found her a land of many domains,
Maiden forest and fallow plains --
He left her a land of many homes,
The pearl of the world where the sea wind roams,
And New Zealand went mourning all the way.