GREEN FIRE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1912, Page 3

GREEN FIRE.

WITH THE SUMMER AT SILVERSTREAM GRASSED WALKS AND SINGING WOODS. (By D.W.) It is summer now at Silveretream, summer in. full glory of leaf and blossom. The tremulous expectancy of tho quickening spring has parsed, an undetinable happiness pervades the whole earth. The young tender tints of the willows ill the Hutt Valley have- taken on a more uniform green, they have lost the early ethcrealness that made them once look like the spirit of spring caught and held. It is the Wcssoming time of the year. The ilaming pohutukawa, herald of Christmas, jewelled among its giey green leaves, glows along the seashore in all the bravery of its crimson. On the low hilleides, from Petone to Silverstream, the convolvulus if> swinging myriads of white stars, the purple foxglove is ringing fairy chimes for those who have not forgotton fairy lore. The air is fragrant with sweet briar, humblest, though sweetest of all the roae«, gorgeous in gowns of petalled pink.' MANUKA-^-FOR ENDURANCE. The manuka, from every country roadside, from every ridge, from every valley, shakes poignant odours from its starlike blossoms, massed so thickly that the bushes look a« if powdered with snow. The manuka, it seems to me, has been specially endowed with courage and strength, and powers of endurance. It of tea grows where no other plant will; in cold, uncongenial soil, exposed to storm and wind, and its blossoming time has a peculiar beauty of grace .and tenderness all its own. But superstition has it y&u must not pluck the manuka, it rejoices in its freedom, and brings sorrow to its despoiler. It is a pity that some such lcro does not cling about the clematis^ earliest and fairest of all the native flowers, which is fast disappearing from its haunts in bush and valley. That noxious weed, the blackberry, adds .its quota of blossom, with the promise of better things in the autumn. Flowers, it has been said, seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity, and hero^ on the Toadside, is surely solace and comfort for many. In the forest, in cunning nooks and vales, the kie-kie, honey sweet, is blooming freely, and the rangiora thrusts forward creamy bunches in scented undulations. THROUGH COOL PASTURES. It has been a sodden summer. More often than not war clouds gathered on the horizon,' great ugly black rain clouds were' brought up over the blue, and there have been many passings to and fro of fruitful showers, with occasional spears of sunshine, and everything was well watered, until the blessing of beauty was given, and the forest burned like green fire. In the bush there have been strange laughings of tiny streams, new born,* which in summers past have died long before 'the flowering of the manuka. The beauty of the grass at Silverstream cannot fail 'to catch the eye. There it grows deep and free, a glorious enamel sparkling with dew in the- early morning, or soft and cool at eventide, by silent scented paths, filling cool pastures by the riverside, or flowing in endless green waves on the hill sides, where the dead trees thrust out crooked arms in vain lament. Already some of the grasses are bearing the seeds which are to prolong the race. They veil the earth with hushed softness, giving a cheerfulness to the landscape. For many the grass stands for rest. STILLY EEL POOLS. - -' There is untamed country lying under 'the sunshine in the Hutt Valley, a' country of- untamed strength, having enough of the mountain spirit to throw itself into a succession of bold slope and valley. * The river cuts its way through .the smiling valley, sometimes branching off in quiet backwaters. haU overgrown with flax and rußh, where the eel slips and glides, an easy proy even to the amateur fisherman, provided he is armed with worm* long and fat enough. The Hutt River is a lovely stream, haunted by the angler, who, •more often than not, fishes in vain. It flows through a quietness of sweet dayli(*b or tender moonlight in the midst of human labour and life, bright and bare to the clouds above and to the fresh fall of the passing sunshine and pure rain, harmonising with tho peculiar outlawed loveliness of its banks, overgrown with manuka, sweet briar, willow and flax and cabbage tree, unrestrained in fruitfulness. This valley, if nob gilded with corn, is fragrant with deep grass; the air teems filled with living sunshine, and the skies are often deepest azure, flecked with clouds of purest silver. • > STORY OF THE BED BIRCH. In the forest- the birch trees are talking together, answering each other from hiorning until evening. Birch ! There is magic in it, for just now the glory of the forest is the red birch. The Canterbury plain-dweller knows it not, but it is the peculiai* beauty, what is- left of it, of the Wellington hills. It is not catholic in its tastes, and it likes most to dwell with its brethren in unity on the steep hill slopes of tho Hutt Valley. Sou will find it there in all its glory. It has been aaid that the highest pleasures of the sight shouH be those of most difficult attainment, and to see the birch in its lot eliness you must climb — not by humbie and loving ways, but ai:rosa steep gullies, wide and deep, lilted to the brim with tree fern, and then you must clamber patiently through* tangles of lawyer and bracken, rangiora and lancewood, and a hundred other things, to the sun-kissed slopes it loves. But it is well worth while, for it has a beauty that makes one lose sight of one's own existence. It is almost always the young birch ■ that receives this gtierdon of glory — I cannot call it colour, it is conflagration. The foliage, which possesses a delicate tracery of leaf like giant maidenhair, assumes shades of crimson of inexhaustiblevariety, from dull browns and reds to brightest crimson, emerald, and ruby, like a woven garment, a treasure of natural beauty. To my mind it ha& no rival in its delicate, glossy loveliness, and holds a promise of deep delight to him who rejoices in the sight of noble things. -RAU AROHA— LEAF OF LOVE. The forest holds a secret — except for the patient seeker. It is the mistletoe— t-he Rau aroha, or leaf of love, as it is called by the Native race. If in ancient days a Maori wished to please his mistress he climbed the trees for a. sprig of Ran aroha, or le.af of love. It was no mean feat either, for always the plant chose tho tallest and smoothest trees in the forest wherein to dwell. Mistletoe! Unconsciously we weave a web of subtle fancy around the plant used by the Druids in their mystic ceremonials, now innocently employed in the festive decoration of halls and kitchens. We hear again in our dreams the ciy of Ule! Ule! Three puddings in a pule, • Crack nuts and cry Ule ! One imagines the days when the old halls of castles and manor houses were thrown open at daylight, when the tables were covered with brawn and beef and humming ale, when the harp and the carol resounded all day long. But we awake to summer sunshine and the dizzy humming .of the ipcust. ' Bub 6&U jn

the bush the mistletoe- is there, for all that — crowned, not with waxen berry, but with crimson blossom, as becomes a leaf of love. Magic Mistletoe ! Magic Rau aw'ha ! And still, and still, more still, the old wassail chorus need not be out of place :—: — The brown bowle, The merry brown bowle, As it goes round übout-a, Fill still, let the world say what it will, And drink your fill all out-a. "BIRDS IN THEIR LEAFY CHANCELS." The forest is full of bird call?. The birds hold high carnival at Silvcrstieam. Their chansons are heard from dewy morn till, eve. It is worth a king's ranpom to hear the silver fluting of the blackbirds flying low at early morning — to hear the love calls of the thrush, to watch the larks gathering fearlessly round the door of the homestead for crumbs; the sociable little fantails (who would shoot tho head oft a fantail?) with almopt human inquisitiveness, flit noiselessly in the trees,, the magpies flash, in their sombre dress of black and white, across the intervening spaces in the woodland, and from every point of the compass comes the peculiar long-drawn ec-re-e-e-eeh ! sc-re-e-e-ech ! of the irresponsible cuckoo, on mischief bent. His mate has" laid her egg in an alien nest, and so he sends forth a scream of defiance, of unholy ' glee — screeeech ! screech ! In an open glade near by, within a stone's throw of the .house in which I stayed, in a tangle of bracken and fern, a quail sits close on twelve brown spotted eggs, while not far away her crested mate keep 3 watch and ward, and, as ho hunts for provender, senda to her an occasional love call. She, good soul, is doubtless dreaming of the little downy family that will soon nestle under her breaet, or flutter in her wake. But it is at nightfall, when all respectable birds are asleep, that " the morepork, who has- been dozing comfortably all day, wakes up and challenges all an'J sundry through the night. He is the sentinel of the forest. WHEN THE MIST COMES DOWN. Down in the valley, among the scattered homesteads, at the day's end, there is a solemn glow of pastoral light and peace. It rests like a benediction and soothes like a curfew bell. The night falls and silence wraps the valley round. Then comes the White Mist, tfc lies softly in the valley, level and white, and above it rise the tops of the hills, ghost -like ; and solemn imaginings tak^ shape and people the White Mist with tho ghost's of living men who once trod the forest aisles co bravely— stealing m and out of the mist, whispering together all the night long. But at; daybreak the misfc rises from the valley, and, cold and quiet and mysterious, passes away like a dream.