Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/73

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From “Ranolf and Amohia.”
37
And glens and lustre-smitten shades,Where trees of tropic beauty rareWith graceful spread and ample swellUprose—and that strange asphodelOn tufts of stiff green bayonet-blades,Great bunches of white bloom upbore,Like blocks of sea washed madrepore,That steeped the noon in fragrance wide,Till by the exceeding sweet opprestThe stately tree-fern leaned asideFor languor, with its starry crownOf radiating fretted fans,And proudly-springing beauteous crestOf shoots all brown with glistening down,Curved like the lyre-bird’s tail half-spread,Or necks opposed of wrangling swans,Red bill to bill—black breast to breast,Ay! in this realm of seeming rest,What sights you meet and sounds of dread!Calcareous caldrons, deep and largeWith geysers hissing to their marge;Sulphureous fumes that spout and blow;Columns and cones of boiling snow;And sable lazy-bubbling poolsOf sputtering mud that never cools;With jets of steam through narrow ventsUproaring, maddening to the sky,Like cannon-mouths that shoot on highIn unremitting loud dischargeTheir inexhaustible contents;While oft beneath the trembling groundRumbles a drear persistent soundLike ponderous engines infinite, workingAt some tremendous task below!—Such are the signs and symptoms—lurkingOr launching forth in dread display—
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