Hear Denis Glover read three of his poems, ‘The Magpies’, ‘Threnody’ and ‘Towards Banks Peninsula: Mick Stimson’. The portrait of Glover, by Leo Bensemann, dates from the mid-1930s.

The Magpies

When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm
The bracken made their bed,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

Tom's hand was strong to the plough
Elizabeth's lips were red,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

Year in year out they worked
While the pines grew overhead,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

But all the beautiful crops soon went
To the mortgage-man instead,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

Elizabeth is dead now (it's years ago);
Old Tom went light in the head;
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

The farm's still there. Mortgage corporations
Couldn't give it away.
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies say.

Threnody

In Plimmerton, in Plimmerton,
The little penguins play,
And one dead albatross was found.
At Karehana Bay.

In Plimmerton, in Plimmerton,
The seabirds haunt the cave,
And often in the summertime
The penguins ride the wave.

In Plimmerton, in Plimmerton,
The penguins live, they say,
But one dead albatross they found
At Karehana Bay.

Towards Banks Peninsula: Mick Stimson

I

The water in the long bay
Fingered in and slowly fell away
Hard by your doorstep;

Smooth-sliding the plain of the water
Told you your numbered hours,
Time of netting, time of laughter.
Incorrigible of anecdote, hauling

Out of a deepsea net
Ragtails and rum-soaked rope-ends
Of many a forenoon watch on ships time-dark
(Wave-nuzzling little Sea Horse
Or the tallest barque)

You gave the salt its tang
Of Irish oaths, washed rolling down
From a death-green jar.
Your short pipe
Blackened with burning, story ripe,
Would warp the deck beams overhead,
Smelt worse than Jeannie dead
Three days under her own bed.

II

It would take some finding now
Under the coarse hillside grasses,
That place we buried you and meant
To roll a stone to your head,
Planting there the anchor most sailors swallow
Which never again would follow
The curl at the bow of your boat
Round the bays in long summer days.

III

High in those hills your name is forgotten.
But the legend lives on in the yachts
Ghosting to anchorage mud
With warp running out
And the squeal of blocks
And the echoing shout
Of the boats' crews and the boats.

You not there, in that Easter calm
Your face phosphorescent in water
Answers the moon's gleam.

IV

Sure you could mend a net
Better than us with fool fingers
Feeling the crimp and cramp
–Nets knotted and tough like yourself,
Good tarred hemp.

And the fruit your fruit trees bore.
'Spray them be damned.
Have you ever ate
Nectarines like them yet?
I tell ye, salt air is pure.'

'Ye're a liar,' you'd shout.
'Ye set the bluidy net off that point
I told yez t' bluidy well let
Alone to the sharks.
I know by the marks
Of them tears it was sharks.'

V

Beachcomber, Dirty Old Mick,
Was the easiest way to your name,
Proud Henry Charles Stimson,
Sniggered behind your back
When you'd shouldered your pack
In the pub and hit the track.
Dirty. With your talk of clean ships
And fabulous tonnages
And your plimsol line higher
Than the pride of bank managers.

And your cocksfooting without booze
While you bought the Maori kids shoes.

VI

Full of sentiment you were. ‘May God
Bless our great and glorious Queen Victoria.'
Stiff at attention while a tear trickled,
Old wrinkled warrior.

Deserter too – a Queen's man run
From the lower deck and away
Like a shell from a gun;
And impulsively mad:
Diving into the Bay of Biscay
To rescue an officer's dog.
In a ship if it happened to-day
They'd stop your grog.

VII

Here from your chosen Port Levy
There was not one bay of the bays
Wouldn't baffle a navy
To fish or to sweep without help:
Every flaw in the weather divined,
Every reef, rock, steep point,
Anchorage, kelp
Bank and current
Engraved on the chart of your mind.

VIII

Now the hills fold over
Your time-elapsed frame.
The cocksfoot and clover
Creepingly cover even your name.

You are salty dust where you lie.
But quickened is the anonymous sea,
And the hours lick endlessly
At the stone of the sky.