Looking at Kāpiti


Sleep, Leviathan, shouldering the Asian
Night sombre with fear, kindled by one star
Smouldering through the fog, while the goaded ocean
Recalls the fury of Te Rauparaha.

Massive, remote, familiar, hung with spray,
You seem to guard our coast, sanctuary
To our lost faith, as if against the day
Invisible danger drifts across the sea.

And yet in the growing darkness you lose
Your friendly contours, taking on the shape
Of the destroyer — dread Moby Dick whose
Domain is the mind, uncharted, without hope.

Without hope, I watch the dark envelop
You and like a light on a foundering ship’s
Masthead the star go out, while shoreward gallop
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.