GOLDEN AUTUMN

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 139, 26 May 1928, Page 11

GOLDEN AUTUMN

MEDITATIONS IN HAWKE’S BAY. "And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, with their obstinate, all but hushed voices—“ E'en -so, it is sol" It is good to be alive on these day’s of autumn in Hawke’s Bay. On the fine days, when the trees are golden and all Nature seems happy it is easy to forget for a time the lack of harmony in human nature. Sit alone by a river with its golden willows along the banks, and perhaps amidst the autumnal beauty Browning’s words will come into your mind: — "I but open mv eyes,— and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined, fullfronts me, and God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod." How many poets have gained inspiration from the still, golden days of the waning year, and then in their writings hav© left us philosophy, drawn from the fount of Nature, to smooths the paths of life. Shelley says: "There is harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its s ky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen. As if it could not be, as if it had not been I’’ David, the verse writer of old. reflects his early love of out-door life in nearly all his psalms. His metaphors are taken from the world of Nature he knew so well as a shepherd. He says: "Let the field be iovfu] and all that is therein “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.” Nature helped him in his most bitter moments.. Turn where we will to any old writers, we shall find the beneficent influences of the earth’s beauty on their thoughts and writings. * Do we in Hawke’s Bay, living in the hurry of modern civilization, appreciate the message that lies for us in our beautiful country? Shakespeare says we can find “good in everything.” and so if we really turn to Mother Earth in :our difficulties we will find—all ready for our observation—“books in the running brooks.”

This inspiration from Nature is reflected in the writings left bv many great m°n throughout the ages which we, perhaps thousands of years after the words are penned, turn to ..for guidance. Marcus Aurelius takes Earth s treasures for his metaphor when he leaves with us these fine words:

“Whatever anyone does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or the emerald, or the purple were always saying this ‘Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald, and keep my colour,' ”