IN THE RANGES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 29

IN THE RANGES.

I Lost— on the granite range, on the cruel sharp-get peak, 'With never the track of a cattle hoof to give me the signlse^; Gorges around me, to left, to right, wherever I choose to turn, And a pitiless sun on the bleaching cliffs till they glisten and blister aucl burn. Miles below me I see the plain— mocking it seemi to lie, With its water courses stamped out green, -and here every rock is dry, So near to the sight, so near, down the lead of the last ravine ' That creeps from the storm-worm crags, and the darkness that lies between. I was here last night at sundown— ay, there is the shelving stone Where I sat and watched for the rising moon, waited and watohed alone ; And this it the clefted rook, by the dip of the long dried rill Where grey dawn found me, footsore and mazed, walking and watching still. Slowly the hours crawl on j the mn mounts higher and higher. Purpling the bronze of the forest, scourging the earth with bis fire ; There's many a pain that maddens the brain, but I wonder which is worst,— The death in life of a Blow disease or the pangs of a lingering thirst T How long will it last— how long will spirit and body strive With the deadly grasp of the desert foe, and phantoms that gibber and writhe — Daybrrak succeeding night, and darkness following day. Famine and heat, doubt and despair, wearing the soul away P March 13. — Phii.