A STORMY DAWN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2388, 7 December 1899, Page 52

A STORMY DAWN.

A, sharp, cold morning, with a clear,frosty sky to eastward, and banks of cloud to westward and southward. As they move from west to east they become tinged with red, and look angry and unrestful, as though their night had been disturbed by weird dreams, which still cast their uncanny spell upon them, making them look as if they might be visitants from a world of unrest. The distant mountains, towering away to the north, loom dimly through a thick haze which hangs over all that lies between. Suddenly a lurid light as of distant fire plays on them, showing through the haze with a fierce glare. Strange shadows lurk in the clefts, now advancing and now retreating, like weird spectres. Orepuki iff shrouded in dark vapour, which yet grows more greywhite every moment. Now the murkyglare has left the hills, and once more they rise, dark and sullen. I know where the sea lies only by its tumultuous roaring, — by the sound of its mad dashing against the cliffs. It is full of anger this cloudy morning, alternate shrieks of despair and thunders of rebellion burst from its waves. God pity those on whom they, would wreck their wrathful fury. Truly, those "who go down- to, the sea in ships" •have need of prayer ha its days of stormy anger. Now to the east the sky is red, not with a glad bright glow, but rather with a scowl of smothered wrath. Skeleton trees — tho few poor stragglers left when man laid low the glory of the bush — stand bare and stark. Their ghastly branches', like long arms, seem raised in protest against the hand that despoiled them of their birthright of grandeur. Nearer me still, from out a gully, Tises a luxuriance of varied green. Noble pines rear their dark heads aloft";] carmois rise to stately height, and mingld their almost black foliage with the tassels' of the red pine ; lower down come broadleaf trees, rustling "their leaves of glossy green to catch the beams of the sunrise ere they lose their first glory, and mhi gjin^ them witk iilA wftei lIUjBS pi jfcuk>

"tuk-and, mikimik; then the eye rests on 'the tangle of vines, lawyers, and clematis, and sweet clinging things — ferns of every shade of green — all awaiting the rising of the sun. Away to the south-west lie the Pahia Plains, and now they take on a dazzling sheen of light. Every undulation throws a shade, and the light gleams brighter for the contrast — brighter still: all things seem to shimmer and quiver. Suddenly the wind rises to a, mighty roar ; the clouds roll -together and blacken strangely ; then forth from them darts <a tongue of flame, the earth trembles beneath me as the voice of the clouds is thundered forth, and I stand in the full, wild beauty of a stormy dawn, revelling wit- a sense of awe in its deep grandeur. VIOLET.