Like to a Star the Maid Beloved.

This is part of a song of grief composed by an aged woman of Hokianga for her relative Ngaro, a girl who died in the pride and beauty of her youth:

“The evening star is waning. It disappears
To rise in brighter skies,
Where thousands wait to greet it.
All that is great and beautiful
I heed not now;
Thou wert my only treasure.
The people still assemble
At their feast of pleasure;
The canoe still cuts the wind in twain
And scatters the sea foam;
Still the sea-birds, like a cloud,
Darken the sky, hovering o'er the crags—
But the loved one comes no more.”