This Land—Papua

WHATEVER call I felt to leave this land In bygone days, a prey to thoughts that seemed To promise more than what I had in hand Of calm and ease and pleasures real or dreamed; Whatever call I felt I must obey, To find relief from longing’s plaintive cry, It is to this wild land that now to-day My spirit clings, my calmer soul gives way.

I feel and know that here where I have fought And sinned and suffered, laughed at passion’s heat.

Drunk all the draughts of pleasure life has brought Or bitter cups of misery and defeat— Here in this land whose discords suit my ear, Whose features once were sullen in my eyes, This very land that has to me grown dear, Now holds me close in mild but sweet surprise.

Whatever call I feel to wander now To distant lands with wider ways that hold For other men a heavy-laden bough Of care, success, or crop of gleaming gold, This land the mother of all I know unkind, Whose wayward steps I never could explain, This very land the only place I find Where I can live at rest with heart and mind.

Richard Humphries.

Kikori, Papua.