Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/152

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Mount Tarawera.
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
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