New Zealand Verse/Mount Tarawera
LXX.
Mount Tarawera.
In sunshine stretching lightly o’erThe Lake’s far end from shore to shore,Long stripes of gauze-like awning lay—In stripes serene and white as they,Repeated on its bright blue floor:And many a rocky rugged bluff,With crimson-blossoming boscage rough,O’er beetling crest and crevice flung;—White cliff or dark-green hill afarWith patches bleached of scarp and scar—Stood boldly forward sunrise-fired,Or back in sun-filled mist retired.Untrembling, round the glistering rimOf that expanse of blooming blue,From headland bright or inlet’s brim,Long fringes of reflection hung. Its ramparts stretched along the sky,One mighty Mountain reared on highFar o’er the rest a level crest,With jutting rounded parapetAnd rude rock-corbels rough-beset,Half-blurred by time and tempest’s fret;While smooth its slopes came sweeping downFrom that abraded cornice brown.The mountain this, the ruddy steep,That Ranolf, sun-awaked from sleep,So longed to scale; and high in airIn glad imagination shareIts sky-possessing majestyOf haughty isolation!—thereInto each dark recess to pryAnd every sight and secret seeIts lofty level might reveal,Or those grim fissures’ depths conceal,That split the Mountain into three. About the heights, soft clouds, a few,Clung here and there like floating flue;Like helpless sea-birds breeze-bereft,Unmoving spread their pinions white—From jutting crag, deep-bathed in light,To slip away in snowy flight;Or closely crouched in shadowy cleft,Like lambing ewes the flock has left.Below, o’erjoyed at darkness fleeing,Reviving Nature woke againTo all the exceeding bliss of being!The minnows leapt the liquid plainIn shoals—each silvery-shivering train,A sudden dash of sprinkled rain!The wild-ducks’ black and tiny fleetShot in and out their shy retreat;The cormorant left his crowded tree And stretched his tinselled neck for sea;All Nature’s feathered favourites pouredTo their adored undoubted LordOf light and heat, accordance sweetOf pure impassioned revelry;And honey-bird and mocking-birdAnd he of clearest melody,The blossom-loving bell-bird—eachDelicious-throated devoteeIn happy ignorance framed to beContent with rapture—longing-freeFor life or love they cannot reach—Like chimes rich-tuned, to heaven preferredThe praise of their mellifluous glee;Each lurking lyrist of the groveWith all his might sang all his love;Till every foliage-filled ravineAnd bower of amaranthine greenRang persevering ecstasy.