XIV This is Our Thought

1
We heard that Taranaki was destroyed.
Afterwards came news about Ngatiruanui;
here we were perplexed.

We had not heard there was fighting
until the soldiers had gone aboard the ships;
then we heard.

– 17 –

Now this offence was from the Pakeha:
hence, we said,
we are strangers to one another.

This is our thought;
we are divided,
you on one side,
we on the other.

2
This is another thing, about the roads.

The roads are not simply for fetching food
from a man's farm;
throughout the island, it is this
that creates fear.

At Taranaki, the road being there,
your guns reached the pa.

3
I have not heard that the roads
are stopped up;
the great road of the Waikato
is not stopped, the road
of the Waipa river
is not stopped. The Pakehas
and the Maoris
are travelling upon them;

the road of the Union Jack
alone is closed.