THE WILD WEST COAST.

Grey River Argus, 25 June 1906, Page 4

THE WILD WEST COAST.

(By Dr. T. F. Macdonald.)

She looks towards the setting sun o'er burning seas and skies With wonder in her" youthful face, and 1 * lustre -'in -ner ' eyes : She stands upon a rock-bound shore, i and -draws 'the Westland air Deep down, unconscious of her , strength, unknowing she is" fair. O, wild West Coast, by mountains walled, as if by nature planned, In all the circle of the seas I know' no fairer land; In all the rondure of the earth where \ are there- hills like thine, In sweeping lines, and linked strength and touched with grace 'divine! Why gaze into those vacant skies, ! across those fruitless seas, When love is calling from thy streams j and whispering in thy trees?

AJ healing sound of water freshly poui '■ t ing from the hills,, Fjrom shingle-bed to snow-capped I peak's, "Otira's valley fills; 6 'Qy, s woundeda>nes may rest from social stress: and strain, Aju! ,jvith the balm of nature build 4 their "Jiappiness" again. The river of Otira moves with soft and sinuous tread^ -> ' - A thing of life in shining mail tr eyes with fancy fed— j Uncoiling swiftjy from* the ,Gprge ir j westward leap 'to fight With foam-fanged jaws, the granite j rocks and ~ churn them, in hi 1 j might. "■ Oftira's torrents roar in flood; anc J over them the waid Comes down the pass with strideni , shrieks, an omnipresent fiend, Tjc shift the shingle down the hills and burst the clouds, and blow The workmen's tents to shreds, and lay the forest giants low. Otira's mountains, range on range on either banish uprise In bastioned might and grandeur I meet foundations for the skies; And looking , upward through the _ 'gloom, nor "sun- nor moon,, in sigh Infinite space seems but' a. dome 0 vapour lashed with light. Otira's sabaoth of< trees^ when wintei dips her wing. Beneath . the kingdom of the hills to whiten everything, Are veiled in flowing robes of frost, - a mute, unmoving, throng As if Otira called them 'forth' and , [ chained them -there'^ with song. ' Otira's- sun>leans,on a throne of rocks j . embossed .with iSnow', | Apd calls the- shadows"' from their ' haunts, and.bids the stars to glow What time the "housewife 'tends 'the fire and t^ims the lantern's oil \ Tp light the children, home from school '[ the workman. fronV'his toil. M ■ Aj world of restless elements 1 In af« ,_Jiqn _ fresh_and bold With every shifting of "the scene new \ .^ tragedies', -unfold j- - -\ 3But beauty. loves those hills of thine, and to their crimson tips She clambers, when the, sunrise comes, } to touch them with her lips.