Rona in the Moon
Jessie Mackay 1864 (Rakaia Gorge) – 1938 (Christchurch)
Rona, Rona, sister olden,-
Rona in the moon!
You'll never break your prison golden,-
Never, late or soon!
Rona, for her crying daughter,
At the dead of night
Took the gourd and went for water;
Went without a light.
There she heard the owlets wrangle
With an angry hoot;
Stick and stone and thorny tangle
Wounded Rona's foot.
'Boil the moon!' she said in passion;
'Boil your lazy head!
Hiding thus in idle fashion
In your starry bed!'
Angry was the moon in heaven;
Down to earth she came:-
'Stay you ever unforgiven
For the word of shame!
Up!- you made the moon a byword -
Up and dwell with me!'
Rona felt the drawing skyward,-
Seized a ngaio tree.
But from earth the ngaio parted
Like a bitten thread;
Like a comet upward darted
Rona overhead.
In the moon is Rona sitting
Never to be free;
With the gourd she held in flitting
And the ngaio tree.
You'll never break your prison golden,-
Never, late or soon,
Rona, Rona, sister olden, -
Rona in the moon!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 40 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB cdcd exex afaf agag hihi xfxf jiji ABAB |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 927 |
Words | 188 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"Rona in the Moon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/21333/rona-in-the-moon>.
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