BY RERE LAKE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 29 January 1908, Page 86

BY RERE LAKE.

Through a 'forest of stately * birches, whose lace-like leaves of green' Filter the dazzling sunbeams as through an emerald screen,, „ O'er the spongy peat beneath out feet, o'er mosses and ferns, to tread; While the tui echoes his lonely note in the branches overhead*. As we wander away through a- sylvan glade in scented air. and cool, Swiftly there dawns 'twuri; the distant trees a glimpse of wind-swept pool; But a nearer view and the rippling blua proves a lake, superb* Jo be, Where silv'ry trout bound in and out in piscatorial glee. Past the forest of birch that engirds the lake ! we move across the sward; - • Swift scampers the- lizard* away to his lair, upleaps a teeming horde Of grasshoppers fleeing at' our approach; the cicada; sings close by, . While buzzes about us, as bold as can be, a species of dragon-fly. Then down a declivity dips our path; o'er slippery slopes we glide, Past fern-girt gully' and gurgling creek, with. a wealth of bush beside. . ' By boulder and bog along we jog, with many a turn and bendi, As towards the river in yonder gorge our tortuous way we wend. Deep-down in .the Greenstone Gorge we pause ' while the roaring stream., flows by,- • And away to the left view, the bare '■brown peak that pierces t&e' azure sky; - An"d just in the' fore,, on th© further shores scan heights of sombre green, Where tree-clad oliff and waterfall diversify the scene. As we linger and gaze at the rock-strewn stream and the landscape stern and grand., There steals o'eT our senses a tinge of glooms that our wills would r fain withstand, ' And a vague impress of our lowliness and the might of the Overlord Is wafted to us ere we move again is> th« track across the sward. —T. H. T.

— Doctor: "The increasing deafness of your wife is merely an indication of advancing years, and' you can tell her that." Husband : "Hum ! Would you. mind telling her that yourself; doctor?'