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The Norfolk Pine
by Archie Bigg

For more than a million years they stand
Planted with care by Father Time,
Tended with love by nature's hand
A beautiful tree, the Norfolk pine.
And through their branches the white birds play
As above they soar and twist and climb
While deep below the rich moist clay
Holds fast the roots of the Norfolk pine.
In the year of seventeen seventy-four
Captain Cook, explorer fine
Walked the untrodden forest floor
And he told his king of the Norfolk pine.
"I have", claimed he, "in my travels vast
'Neath a southern sky where bright stars shine
Found a suitable tree for the yards and masts
Of His Majesty's ships, in the Norfolk pine".
The settlers came from a distant shore
With a strange new sound in a bygone time
The voice of man with his crosscut saw
As he took for his use the Norfolk pine.
And in anguish nature's hands were wrought.
Be patient, friend, said Father Time.
But man took all and he gave back nought
Though it served man well did the Norfolk pine.
Then a new generation of man was born
And he looked to the future beyond his time
Then he planted the hills that before were shorn
And he planted the valleys with Norfolk pine.
Thus he looked at the forest with different eyes,
At the beauty there of a tree so fine
As it speaks to the wind with a gentle sigh,
A beautiful tree is the Norfolk pine.