HOLIDAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 7, 13 February 1892, Page 162

HOLIDAYS.

The resting time for weary ones, Far off from clang of rolling wheels, When Mother Nature takes our hands, And with soft peace our languor heals. We lie where long waves slowly pass Along the wind-swept sandy shore ; Or where in thund’rous tempest tossed Their night long cataracts they pour. We pass along the moon-lit ways, M here land rails haunt the sleeping corn, Where owls do plaint to whit, to whoo, And uddery kine await the morn. The hills are sleeping, robed in grey ; Anon a voice of quavering song Intones the night, far o’er the dale The low bell rings the curfew song. We wander in the house of God, By loving hands high built of old, And hear the quivering anthems, high Amid their misty arches rolled. By winding dells and ferny lanes A devious, careless path we twine. And pluck the fairy’s finger cups, And wreathing bells of columbine. The little birds they come and go, The sun doth golden all the leaves, The breezes sigh from o’er the hills, And murmur ’mid the listening sheaves. The hamlet sleeps in afternoon, All slumbrous are the village ways ; The oldjiquse dreams amid the dales, Of old time folk, forgotten days ; Of voices passed from path and hill, Of footsteps passed from earth to God, Of forms in holy soil long laid And sleeping ’neath the daisied sod. And Mother Nature’s slow, deep voice Sings old, old songs of peace and rest, Eternal lullabies, that croon To dreamless quiet, wandering quest. Dunedin. Edmund Nevill.