the nature of European empires
is this - conquerors are the conquerors
of small countries :- the skies are sapphire
in New Ulster and the New Munsterers
have found themselves a fastness in the sea -
the old trees are taller for growing
in that land and the people quite happy
to have an old country without knowing
the suburb though’s an abandoned village
and the storage warehouses are full -
two centuries of property and pillage
end with answering some other country’s pull
we take the land and make it redundant
only when leaving we feel abundant
Oxford
3 April 2018
New Zealand was originally divided into a New Ulster and New Munster (and briefly a New Leinster too ). Its history in some respects is that of a New Ireland. My ancestry is overwhelmingly from Ireland - plantation Protestant Irish and native Irish as well.
Oliver Goldsmith published the poem ” The Deserted Village” in 1770 on an Irish village that had been abandoned for America. Please note that ” answering” has two syllables on line 12 not three.