IN AUTUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2732, 25 July 1906, Page 63

IN AUTUMN.

Summer has sweetened and passed, with her stairy, warm nights and her fragrances, Autumn has come with mists, irore skies and turbulent Beas ; Tha sap sinks down, the leaves have fallen, and, gathered, are burnt on a thousand pyres, Whose smoke, like wraiths of the Summer, athwart bare trees reels upwards, thinly melting away. Calm and cold, with their irosty sulences, ■'he long nights, flashing with stars, Hang over earth, her p.underea trees and her stubble fields hoar with frozen vapours : Harvested, left baie in her penury, over n.er, fir fining from East to West, Regniue swings, his starry sickle scattering crimson leaves, and ears imhusked and golden. Glad was the Spring, the youth of the year, when the Sun-god had conquered the Lion, Broken his desolateness, and fast with joyous steps Had ieapt to the white soft arms of the dimeyed heavenly Virgin : Earth to, their union responded with blossoming breast, ana waim breath trembling and odorous! Ever the Spring returns. The hard, brown seed in the womb of earth, sun-quickened, Opens the portal of life unending, a miracle lost to vreakiy eyes, dim and blinded with glories ! Ever the Spring returns — yet we who hail her sweet coining, and happily sighing God-speed, await her return, We look with dread to the sleep when fall from our spirit its aches and its weariness, as the husk iiom the sun-called flower! From darkness we spring, to darkness return ; darknesses litten by faltering human beams, trusted and ]ove<3, For the rainbow of love is behind us, the iam bow of hope before ; And clearer burn the bows athwart those purest tears, the teaTS of sorrowing hearts ; Our very JO3-3 are -as thorns and briars, tearing the Leart when called to its shadowy homo. We cling to "the thorns and the briars' — and wherefore not cling, though they wouud us and tear? Have other aa comforting gleams flickered athwart the grave, That our hearts unshuddering and unterrified can glide from life and its joyousness Into the cold that seems pulseless, and voiceless, and rayless ? Oh! think not of thait, fellow mortal, witli whom I can even desire to siuare the eternal I Think not of that, lest tears should blind our eyes to the beauties so known, so loved: Hopes we have, convictions that nothing has humbled ; Shall we then, knowing so little, lose heart siuce one dark question remains unanswered '/ Season we have for our faith, though proof of its truth must elude us: Immortal we know that we ore — though cradled in mortal arms. Finite our thoughts', yet they rise till they meet the eternal, The I who feel's, not moves in its prison of flesh — that I is the God-born, th« undy-

Not alone, no. not aloive, would I roam the Elysian fields : Though I through the Summer have worshipped a.t sun and at rose, Petal by exquisite petal the rose has unfolded, shedding its beauty For sake of the favourless hip, Nature's iosegamer: the sun too has darkened: Petal by exquisite petal you too have unfolded to me, Another perfect lose of "the God revealed through them all ; A. 3Wt«t, puro, living soul, petalled in virtues faultless 'y fragrant; You oh! you — shall I grope beyond, in the darkness of death, search for you, ache for yoa, O best belovedl vainly, and ever vainly ?' You, or Lethe: immortal remembrance, or forgetfulnesrf unending, — Kor^can tho hope of the one altogether destroy tha shrinking dread of the other: The sunsets will blossom, but not for tie 5 the Summer will swing her censers, And others, inhaling her spirit, shall tremble, as we have trembled, in joy and in fear! Com© wrth the warmth of you, ctear one; the warmth of your cheek and white arms; Come with the. Summer of Life that lightens your eyes through all changes. Let be what will: transformed, exalted, grown perfect, Others ehoU know how we hoped, how we dared and aspired, loved, and braved dc=ith wix)i assurance undoubting, though tearful. — Johannes C, Lxvt&BtJt. Chiistclnircb, July, 190^