Oreti Beach
    To Ruth Dallas

     
    Thunder of waves out of the dying west,
    Thunder of time that overtakes our day;
    Evening islands founder, gold sand turns grey
    In ocean darkness where we walk possessed.

    What does it mean, this clamorous fall of night
    Upon the heart’s stillness? What pledge can they give,
    These passionate powers of the world, that we might live
    More surely than by the soul’s solitary light?

     [from The New Zealand Poetry Yearbook Volume 1, 1951]