Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/86
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50
Fairyland.
Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips,Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips, From mossy branches a faint perfumeBreathed over honeyed clematis lips.
At last we climbed to the ridge on high:Ah, crystal vision! Dreamland nigh! Far, far below us, the wide PacificSlumbered in azure from sky to sky.
And cloud and shadow, across the deepWavered, or paused in enchanted sleep, And eastward, the purple-misted isletsFretted the wave with terrace and steep.
We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay,On headlands sheeted with dazzling spray, And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlornThat for twenty years had wasted away.
All was so calm, and pure and fair,It seemed the hour of worship there, Silent, as where the great North MinsterRises for ever, a visible prayer.
Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land,And rode over shingle and silver sand, For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn,We sought no farther for Fairyland.