Beneath the Fines'

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23009, 9 April 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

Beneath the Fines'

Original by RON a'COSTER (14), J / Whangaparaoa • i "|?VEN on a very ht>t day when everywhere else is hfivy with tlie heat, there is usually a cool breeze under the pines. Animals gather in their shade,while birds flit from tree to tree, in the gentle embrace of the breeze .which, at first, like the deeper tones of an organ softly played, increases for a moment and dies away like tho lingering notes of a harp touched by a master hand. Stray rays of sunshine glide in .between the thick roof of pine branches? and throw golden tints about the I brown slippery pine needles on tho ■ ground. The clear, fresh tang of the -, pines has attracted small. insects ,from; the glare of the sun and now' they' / , drift with the breeze in the cool shade.?; A horse, tired after a hot ride,, wanders slowly to the trees and stands -hi

in the welcome shade flicking his taff; now and then at a stray fly which is hovering near. Slowly the ifnder the pines become darker. The animals have gone further down the field to graze in the cooler light of the evening sun anj the insects have disappeared. The breeze has dropped to a soft drowsiness made heavier by tha resinous scent of the pines. Darkness comes and against the moonlit sky the black -outlines, weird and fantastic in shape, are visible, while the breeze still soughs in the tree tops. "The gods talk in the breath ot the wind, They talk in the sombre pine. And fill the reach of the old seashore With dialogue divine, , And the poet who overhears, One random word they say, Is the fated man of men whom the ages must obey." ; 0 *