A Ballade of Wattle Blossom

HERE'S a land that is happy and fair,
Set gem-like in halcyon seas;
The white winters visit not there,
To sadden its blossoming leas,
More bland than the Hesperides,

Or any warm isle of the West,

Where the wattle-bloom perfumes the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

When the oak and the elm are bare,

And wild winds vex the shuddering trees; There the clematis whitens the air,

And the husbandman laughs as he sees The grass rippling green to his knees, And his vineyards in emerald drest—

Where the wattle-bloom bends in the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

What land is with this to compare?
Not the green hills of Hybla, with bees
Honey-sweet, are more radiant and rare
In colour and fragrance than these

Boon shores, where the storm-clouds cease,
And the wind and the wave are at rest-

Where the wattle-bloom waves in the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

R. Richardson.

Laudabunt Alii

HERE'S some that long for a limpid lake by a blue Italian shore,

Or a palm-grove out where the rollers break and the coral beaches roar;

There are some for the land of the Japanee, and the tea-girls' twinkling feet;

And some for the isles of the summer sea, afloat in the

dancing heat;

And others are exiles all their days, midst black or white or brown,

Who yearn for the clashing of crowded ways, and the lights of London town.

But always I would wish to be where the seasons gently fall

On the Further Isle of the Outer Sea, the last little isle

of all,

A fair green land of hill and plain, of rivers and water

springs,

Where the sun still follows after the rain, and ever the hours have wings,

With its bosomed valleys where men may find retreat from the rough world's way .

Where the sea-wind kisses the mountain-wind between the dark and the day.

The combers swing from the China Sea to the California Coast,

The North Atlantic takes toll and fee of the best of the Old World's boast,

And the waves run high with the tearing crash that the Cape-bound steamers fear-—

But they're not so free as the waves that lash the rocks by Sumner pier,

And wheresoever my body be, my heart remembers still

The purple shadows upon the sea, low down from Sumner hill.

The warm winds blow through Kuringai; the cool winds from the south

Drive little clouds across the sky by Sydney harbourmouth;

But Sydney Heads feel no such breeze as comes from nor'-west rain

And takes the pines and the blue-gum trees by hill and gorge and plain,

And whistles down from Porter's Pass, over the fields of wheat,

And brings a breath of tussock grass into a Christchurch street.

Or the East wind dropping its sea-born rain, or the South wind wild and loud

Comes up and over the waiting plain, with a banner of driving cloud;

And if dark clouds bend to the teeming earth, and the hills are dimmed with rain,

There is only to wait for a new day's birth and the hills stand out again.

For no less sure than the rising sun, and no less glad

to see

Is the lifting sky when the rain is done and the wet grass rustles free.

Some day we may drop the Farewell Light, and lose the winds of home

But where shall we win to a land so bright, however far

we roam?

(B 838)

8

We shall long for the fields of Maoriland, to pass as we used to pass

Knee-deep in the seeding tussock, and the long lush English-grass.

And we may travel a weary way ere we come to a sight as grand

As the lingering flush of the sun's last ray on the peaks of Maoriland.

Ernest Currie.

A

Black Swans

SI lie at rest on a patch of clover

In the Western Park when the day is done,
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;
And I hear the clang of their leader crying

To a lagging mate in the rearward flying,
And they fade away in the darkness dying,
Where the stars are mustering one by one.

Oh! ye wild black swans, 't were a world of wonder
For a while to join in your westward flight,
With the stars above and the dim earth under,
Through the cooling air of the glorious night.
As we swept along on our pinions winging,

We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing,
Or the distant note of a torrent singing,

Or the far-off flash of a station light.

From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes,
Where the hills are clothed with a purple haze,
Where the bell-birds chime and the songs of thrushes
Make music sweet in the jungle maze,

They will hold their course to the westward ever,
Till they reach the banks of the old grey river,

Where the waters wash, and the reed-beds quiver
In the burning heat of the summer days.

Oh! ye strange wild birds, will ye bear a greeting
To the folk that live in that western land?

Then for every sweep of your pinions beating,
Ye shall bear a wish to the sun-burnt band,
To the stalwart men who are stoutly fighting

With the heat and drought and the dust-storm smiting,
Yet whose life somehow has a strange inviting,
When once to the work they have put their hand.

I would fain go back to the old grey river,
To the old bush days when our hearts were light,
But, alas! those days they have fled for ever,
They are like the swans that have swept from sight.
And I know full well that the strangers' faces
Would meet us now in our dearest places;
For our day is dead and has left no traces
But the thoughts that live in my mind to-night.

A. B. Paterson.

The Wind's Message

HERE came a whisper down the Bland between the dawn and dark,

Above the tossing of the pines, above the river's flow;

It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart iron-bark;

It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below;

It brought a breath of mountain air from off the hills of

pine,