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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 9 (January 1, 1934)

Coming Through the Bush at Twilight

Coming Through the Bush at Twilight.

When the day's farm work is ended
And the cows are milked again,
When the sunset shades are glowing
O'er the hazy purple plain;
Then I walk with lingering footsteps
At the dusky hour of day,
Coming through the bush at twilight
As I wend my homeward way.
There's a light within the window
Of the house just through the trees,
And a sound of homely voices
Carried to me on the breeze;
But I pause a while and listen,
Heedless of the light and sound,
To the strange mysterious voices
In the twilight all around.
There are chatterings and twitterings
In the tree-tops overhead,
Of the little feathered creatures
Fluttering noisily to bed,
As they talk and laugh and chatter
In their bright excited way,
And discuss with one another
All the happenings of the day.
There are strange and muffled whisperings
In the darkening leafy shade,
Like the sound of fairy voices
Echoing through the forest glade;
And the punga fronds, soft swaying
In the light a faint moon brings.
Seem like mystic moving shadows
Of a thousand fairy wings.
There are dim and doubtful tree trunks
In the deepening gloom around,
Like a mighty ghostly army
Risen from some burial mound,
Standing up in awesome silence,
Seeming half afraid to move,
With their mighty arms raised upward
To the leafy dome above.
There are little insect voices
Faintly stirring in the air,
As they sing their evening praises
And repeat their evening prayer.
All the bush is full of music
And of deep mysterious things,
And it all blends in together
In the song that Nature sings.
Thus I end each day of toil,
Thus my homeward way I bring,
Thinking of the wondrous mystery
That is filling everything.
These are some of countless fancies
That I dream of on my way,
Coming through the bush at twilight,
At the dusky hour of day.

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