On for ever, on for ever,
Unbeknown beneath the night,
O mo chuma! O mu chuma!
Stole the silent searching blight,
Till it struck us with a shiver,
Shaking wide its woeful curse,
Like the white plumes of a hearse.

Down we dug, but only showered
Poison'd praties o'er the slope -- 
O mo chuma! O mu chuma!
Hoping yet agin all hope,
Till, at long lost overpower'd,
In the gloomy gathering shades
We should rest our useless spades.

While around us ghostly shadows,
Phantoms of our fathers' dead,
O mo chuma! O mu chuma!
Roamed and roamed with ceaseless tread,
Weeping and wailing thro' the meadows,
Fit to melt a heart of stone.
Ochone! and ochone!

Then we knew for solemn certain
That the poison breathing cloud --
O mo chuma! O mu chuma!
Surely yet would be our shroud,
Still would draw its cruel curtain
Closer still round child and wife,
Till it strangled out their life.
O mo chuma! O mu chuma!