A songless land

In his poem ‘Te Whetu plains’, written around 1874, Edward Tregear lamented the quiet of New Zealand, comparing it with his memories of England:

All still, all silent, ‘tis a songless land,
That hears no music of the nightingale,
No sound of waters falling lone and grand
Through sighing forests to the lower vale
No whisper in the grass, so wan, and grey, and pale.