WINTER IN THE WAIKATO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17234, 9 August 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

WINTER IN THE WAIKATO.

THE COMING OF SPRING.

BT BESSIB NINA WATTX.

The frost ia here. The fuel is dear. And woods are sear. And fires bora clear. And frost ip here And has bitten the heel off the. gome year.

Rain and wind and frost and cold! And only so short a time ago it seems that autumn enclosed the Waikat© in a setting of reds and browns and golds. High, on the hills and low in the valleys was the gleam and the tint of autumnal glory, that somehow, mysteriously, suddenly, nature stole from us, leaving us to a world grown bare of wood and nakedly chill. Silver lances of rain fall silently; east winds blow sharply; thunder claps above, our heads from a storm-driven, sky, and lightning tears lurid fires across the heavens.

There are mornings that one awakens to that are carpeted in sparkling gems beneath the pale, delicate sunlight; frost that nips the fingers, and sends down the spine a biting chill.- Birds sing rarely k°m their hiding places. An occasional passage of melody, a flash of a wing are all we have to tell no that somewhere not so far away the feathery songsters are with us stilL Aiwd when the arm shines at all. it is a weak and insipid thing to what wo know has been and will be again. But winter has her beauties. One finds them everywhere. Poets have dreamed of and have sung to the full of spring and summer, revelling voluptuously in their dsKghta, but few have rhapsodied over hoary winter. Yet, as I write, straight before me, Pirongia rises from out her shroud of misty blue and milky whit*, md the lengthening hills are as delicately tmwed against the vapid skyline as any vignette painted by tig master-hand of man. East And West. The lake—-Botoroa—"Long Lake," which » Hamilton's pride, lies sombre and grey aad still, brooding within its borders of sparsely-wooded shores. Upon its mirrored surface here and there, close, to that sedges, a wild duck calls and flaps its wings and dips, and a solitary boat, with a lonely figure silhouetted against the steely gleaming sheet, glides gracefully, silently shoreward. Higher, through a mass of dark macrocarpas and golden wattles, the well-known Waikat© Hospital shows cleanly, white walled and red-roofed, from the windows and deep verandahs of which one looks out upon a country beautifully laid and set by nature, a country that is swiftly sketching in afl , directions, east and weet and north and south.

Spanning the wide, silent river that flows on and on to the great turbulent sea ever so far away, between wattle-covered banks, delicately, amnaticafly perfumed, is tie deep, well-constructed bridge that takes one from the town itself to the deilightftal haunts "on the other side." The river, *«>, like the beautiful lake; is an-other-of Hamilton's prides, -Joe it;wind* and winds round sinuous curves feraed and wiUowed, wattled and acaciaed in the seasons, on the banks of which, high placed, are ' picturesque homes that follow the shining ribbon far down past the splendid golf links of Si. Andrews, It is a picture that reaches out afar, embracing a thousand beauties rare and fine within its compass.

Down on the flat, low-lying land of Frankton, on© discerns the intricacies of railway lines, stretching north and south— to Auckland to Wellington to the Hauraki Plains, whose inhabitants are ever beseeching their government for bridges and roads and drains ; through undulating, rolling country that is so richly clothed in summer but now lies barren and bare of festive dress. Son-washed, sun-warmed, the Waikato looks a comely place enough in which to dwell, and though often one discerns the sob and the sigh in the dreary, sunless hours of winter, yet somehow it seems to be tempered with an indefinable beauty that hints of to-morrow when spring shall ! have trod tins way again in the gold of her lightsome step. So Bite, facet, bite, Th« woods an all the ssaxer, The fuel ia ail the dearar, The fixes ox» all the cleaner. My sprin? is ail the nearer, Yon have bitten, into the heart of the earth. But not into mine. But spring is all the nearer! It would seem that Longfellow—incomparable poet— his lines of winter could not pass without a mention of the wonderful, glorious spring of the year that would come with the close of the wet and the cold and the frost. But to my way of thinking, the heart-dose time of winter, I when the great fires burn in the hearts and the spicy odours of turning logs steal *at and about the fire-lit rooms, when songs are sung and tales are told, has no serious rival. For no night of spring or summer can touch for real, deep-seated happiness and content, the winter eves behind the walls of home.

Chill airs and wintry -winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and it cheers me long'