Denis Glover: The Magpies

When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm
The bracken made their bed,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

Tom's hand was strong to the plough
Elizabeth's lips were red,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

Year in year out they worked
While the pines grew overhead,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

But all the beautiful crops soon went
To the mortgage-man instead,
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

Elizabeth is dead now (it's years ago)
Old Tom went light in the head;
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said.

The farm's still there. Mortgage corporations
Couldn't give it away.
And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies say. 


New Zealand's best-known poem, for New Zealanders that is. Perhaps rivalled only by a very different bird poem, Alan Curnow's "The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch". Glover (1912-1980) wrote too much and drank too much (the latter is actually an understatement) and was an exemplary lyric poet.