HOME YEARNINGS. To J. L. B.

Otago Witness, Issue 2578, 12 August 1903, Page 64

HOME YEARNINGS. To J. L. B.

My spirit to my mountain home returns;' The dearest spot on all the earth to me. 0 how I hunger for the- dawnings there, , Flushing the uplands with delicious light, I The battlemented 1 mountains, lone, sublime, As some brave spirit drudging for the sake I Of homo with all its sweet associations. j O how I hunger for those rugged paths j "Where- oft I wandered in the olden time, To hear the lake's low murmur in the wood's. To see beyond the sable, plumy pines, Resplendent snow fields, and the fragile cloud Veiling the ruggedness of vasty slopes "Where the adventurous foot shall never tread; To see the- glorious sunlight slope athwart I The darksome glens and burnish all the floocl ; Of deep-green waters. Oh, I long to hear | The thousand' torrents from a thousand dells i Murmur beneath the melancholy moon, ' Seeting- thy deep repose, my inland sea, Flooded with silver fire, while far away Tho whiteness of inverted, snowa would seen* The shadowy frontier of that Patatliso From which my race has wandered oh ! 60 long By darksome, sordid waya Oh, how I yearn For sacred times that may return, no more! But when the bitter storms from sea to seaAre loosed and famished cattle in the shed Shiver, and slush is deep about the doors Where plods the weary rustic-, in spirit I, Afar within my mountain solitude, "Would dwell with Winter and sublimity. Oh, when tho tender blade doth start to greet The showers and warmth of spring my spirit! marks, j Sweet resurrection signs and bounds to greet The dawning of that fair, ethereal dny When every wanderer will find his Home. When -the tired labourer sweats beneath, tha sun Of sultry Summer or beside the stream Reposes- where the willow droops to touch Dank cresses, far and faT away I dwell In d«^ply-fronded glades that typify The glories of my heavenly house, below The grandeur of the ageless hills of God. And when the moon upon the harvest field! Look 3 forth and youth and lassie at the- stils Linger to gather blessed meinoriea For all the aftertime, my spirit seeks The wildness of my mountain, fastness, where 1 yet will dwell with Love for evermore And worship toward: the New Jerusalem. 7-Chaki.es Oscar Palmes. Kakikitc* Whare, July 22.