On the Morning Tide

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23067, 18 June 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

On the Morning Tide

The Beauty of the World —and the

By JOYCE JEFFERY

T° city fellers, those condemned each day to journey in trams and buses, there is a sense of adventure, of beauty almost fantastic, a "Lost Horizon" quality, about an early morning ferry crossing on a crisp autumn day. One marvels at the unawareness of the ferry habitue. Nonchalantly he reads his paper, chewing his accustomed pipe; bleats abroad, if he is of the pompous variety, his opinion on current affairs, or holds a garden dissertation with the man next door. "Nice morning, eh!" is his sole grateful tribute to nature for the ecstacy of the morning. His feminino counterpart pounces with frantic haste upon her knitting or becomes swiftly intent upon the manicuro of lacquered nails. Close by, a group of football enthusiasts wrangle blissfully at the shrine of their beloved sport. It is a pity that for them those myriad jewels upon the water represent no more than the somewhat annoying division between the "shore" and "town." The old hulks lie at rest, comatose after labour, aloof, dreaming of other seas, awaiting the dark mysterious brooding of'their eventual night. The pines on the headland fret the sky with a green that is almost velvet. r lhe bay is at peace—the little bay full of •white ships like white-glinted birds. Against the yellow cliffs and green, still water their magic is intensified. Playing at Make-Believe On such a morning all the world is ■waiting to play at make-believe. There is a warm tide of beauty on red city roofs and cream facades. A spire picked out with silver quivers, like a silver sword upon the water. The whole becomes the quiet reflected beauty of Vermeer's perfect "Delft." A bright new tin afloat becomes a Kohinoor. A gull flashes by, low-flying, a wliito birdsymbol of serenity, of assurance, of ■peace, its torn shadow hurrying pn the quiet sea. In that headland beyond St. Mary's Bay, green against luxuriant sky, Chillon Castle is hidden, its cold grey stone aware of the stinging; breath of this radiant morning. This is Montreux; this sea, Lac Leman; and those dim ranges, white-banked with cloud, become the Alps. This make-believe I This happy fairy tale ... this camouflage of life! A flicker of cloud and the vignette and all that imagination wreathed of it is gone, until another mood of cloud

and washes from them all the dust of cities, the drab of complaint, tho disgruntled lurk of labour, until there is a new gleam in them, a new vision for far horizons and all kindly things; it takes your cars, the ears that havt* listened so grudgingly long to hoots and honks and clanging cars, and fills them with sea music and the sonorous murmur of pines. Tho whole complete rhythm of it merges into the broken melody of life, mitigates the hurts and harshness, and all living is a song again. There is such tranquillity in itii autumn stillness, such remoteness as it silvers away to the smoky autumn mauve of the Waitakeres, such peace as it laps at busy wharves and urgent ferries. The Black Shadow of War And yet . . . and yet. . . this radiant morning glory accentuates rather than mitigates the ever looming disturbance of the world, like a flutter of wings, soaring only to fall again; for to tho poignant heart, all beauty echoes that "still sad music of humanity," the tragedy of political chaos, the crass stupidity, the horror of approaching war. Someone flicks another page of the morning paper —"New Zealand increases her air defence." ... A seagull in the blue gives a white shudder like a premonition. Against the gentle sea the city curls its busy morning smoke, displays its

My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is All things I have I'll giec to you, And all my goods I'll share; But there's one door that's locked and barred—- ' You may not enter there. "My mind to me a kingdom is," Of lovely things, and old • Sweet dreams that make me richer far Than diamonds or gold. I give my heart-to yoa, my dear, / seal it toith a fe/is— Bui "my mind to me a kingdom is"— 1 cannot give you this. —.Dorothy Rogers• / > "... shall find again some other fantasy, until another shaft of sunlight shall link it once again with memory or imagination. There are other mornings when the loveliness is more subtle; when through a sense of mist and utter stillness the little sounds stand out like irregular ticks of a clock—the quick tapping of gay heels on macadam, a creaking antique of a cart, a sudden swift-caught sigh in the leaves of a tree as a bird chirrups there. Dimly in the mist the last white petal of an oleander falls. A shrub of hibiscus langorously unfolds its last scarlet flame, a strangely incon- ' gruous touch of tropic fire in this keen air. Almost one can hear this fall of petal, this soft unfurling of a flower. There is tranquillity in these tiny sounds; water lapping at the piles, shadow and cry of gull, white bird afloat on the grey water. There are shadows of silver in this trance of mist; a brilliance hushed. Above a bank of cloud a, summit pierces, grey and challenging, at once a Calvary and a Itesurrection. There are strange sea scents, in the mirrored stillness of the water. Silver ships move with a sibilant sigh and leave a, silver wake until the mist enfolds it. The Mystery of Fog There are, too, dawns when the air is blank and chill; when impenetrable fog weaves the same elusive mystery that mountains know. Then thoughts soar upwards, a world away, to those .eager spirits, Tilman, Smythe and Shipton, who battle against a monsoon on that white Mother-Goddess-of-the-iWorld, high Everest. In the dense swirling fog the old hulks loom with dank forboding, dark furrows on the sea's serene white brow not like the mist, ethereal, magical, creating wraiths of beauty in its liquid movement. Yet in this obliterating fog is beauty, too; in the sombre ringing of Warning bells, in the hooting of sirens, frantic like the cry of a child lost in the ineffable darkness of the world; in the muffled mystery of the passengers themselves . . . and then impulsively the sun tires of his ghostly armour anil breaks a radiant way to find again the dear remembered hills, the soLemn sea. What is this compelling magic in the sea, whatever its mood ? It takes your soul out and puts it back, young and beautiful and invigorated; it takes your heart out and covers it with stinging spray, fills it with glad young thoughts, and gives it/ back with a new vibrant leap in its pulses;' it takes your eyes Two Million Silkworms Busy L A ™L ' HART-DYKE has a special stall at the Glasgow Exhibition to demonstrate the progress she is making with her silkworm hobby. Her farm at Lullingst'one is a pleasant place of pilgrimage to those who are interested in the silkworm industry. It attracts so many visitors, indeed, that Lady HartDyke is proposing to set up tearooms and a refreshment buffet in the old Tudor barn attached to the estate. The dimensions Ao which she has developed her hobby may be gauged from the fact that this year she plans to breed no fewer than two million silkworms. Lullingstone will be more popular than ever this year, for overseas visitors who go to Glasgow and visit Lady Hart-Dyke's stall, are Bure to be fired with some of her enthusiasm and * inspired by a desire to be shown over i her farm when they pass through Lon- ' «lon afterwards. (

Madness

many cargoes and superb world cruisers. The ferry creeps up to the wharf under the shadow of a great cruise ship. There is no sign of life on the liner —it is too early. In another hour, perhaps, languid tourists will toy with grapefruit ih a crystal bowlj now, only a stewardess peeps from a porthole, eager about tho new city and this important little ferry. A full morning tido throbs high upon tho piles and the morning tido of workers surges slowly up tho city streets. Eyes there are that turn more than a little wistfully to the green and blue, to the crystal and the lire, to the amethystine smudge of hills and the glory of the clouds. Ono tiny vignette, this, of all tho beauty in the world; one hint of all its dormant joy, its eager leap of life. Yet nations continue to wrangle, innocent hearts to be wrested and persecuted, refugees to trail in hopeless broken lines over snowclad passes, munition factories to ply their feverish sinister task, hurling forth the ugly "raisou d'etre" of their existence, while this lovely harbour keeps its still tranquillity. The tiny green bay nurses white cockle boats upon its breast, sings to them a hushed sou lullaby, basks in tho sun with them, laughing, dreaming, waiting for the surge of the homeward tide, tho weary, the bitter and tho disillusioned, from tb« nit.v's lienrt,.