Arthur Desmond

Arthur Desmond Poems

Arthur Desmond Biography

Arthur Desmond (c. 1859 – January 26, 1929), a.k.a. Arthur Uing, Ragnar Redbeard, Richard Thurland, Desmond Dilg and Gavin Gowrie, was a New Zealand politician, Australian anarchist, poet and author. Today Desmond is best remembered for his pseudonymously written books Might Is Right and Rival Caesars.)

The Best Poem Of Arthur Desmond

The Song Of Te Kooti

Exult for Te Kooti! Te Kooti the bold;
So fierce in the onset, so dauntless of old,
Whose might was resistless-when battle-wars rolled,
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

The Pakehas came with their rum and their gold,
And soon the broad lands of our fathers were sold,
But the voice of Te Kooti said: Hold the land! Hold!
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

They falsely accused him, no trial had he,
They carried him off to an isle in the sea;
But his prison was broken, once more he was free-
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

They tried to enslave us, to trample us down
Like the millions that serve thern in field and in town;
But the sapling that's bended when freed will rebound-
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

He plundered their rum stores, he ate up their priests,
He robbed the rich squatters to furnish him feasts -
What fare half so fine as their clover-fed beasts?
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

In the wild midnight foray whose footsteps trod lighter?
In the flash of the rifle whose eyeballs gleamed brighter?
What man with our hero could clinch as a fighter?
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

They say it was murder; but what, then, is war?
When they slaughtered our kin in the flames of the pa,
0 darker their deeds and more merciless far!
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

They boast that they'll slay him -they'll shoot him at sight,
But the power that nerves him's a giver of might;
At a glance from his eye they shall tremble with fright -
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

When the darkness was densest he wandered away
To rejoice in the charge of the wild battle-fray;
Now, his limbs they are feeble, his beard it is grey -
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

The Eternal's our father, the land is our mother,
The forest and mountains our sister and brother;
Who'd part with his birthright for gold to another?
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

We won't sell the land - 'tis the gift of the Lord -
Except it be bought with the blood-drinking sword;
But all men are welcome to share in its hoard -
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

Yet 'mid the rejoicing forget not the braves
Who, in glades of forest, have found lonely graves,
Who welcomed cold Death, for they scorned to be slaves -
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

Exult for Te Kooti, Te Kooti the bold,
So sage in the council, so famous of old,
Whose war-cry's our motto -- 'tis Hold the land! Hold!
Exult for Te Kooti, yo-hoo!

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