A Song of Summer.

The Winter storms on the cold gray sea,
And the curtained mists in the valley lie,
The streamlets swirl o'er the flooded lea,
And the wrack scuds low in a rainy sky.
Yet memories linger; and fancy's fain
To squander the wealth of the days that be,
With visions of smoke by the river's roar,
And white-foamed surf on a crowded shore;
But the shores are bleak where the surf-waves foam,
And Summer-days know them no more.

A fern-clad bank on the further side,
A darkened pool where the river bends,
A fuchsia-bush that the tuis know,
An eddied swirl where the waters glide
To the fall and the foam, and the rapid ends.
The storm beats full on the southward wall,
And dims the light with each gust and squall;
And mem'ries spring from the pine-logs' glow,—
A Summer-stream and the ripening grain.
But the rose is blown. Will it bloom again?

So, when the Rata flowers once more,
And the Summer sleeps on the Austral seas,
When the river is warm by the new cut leas,
And the grain is ripe for the garnered store,
Old friends, perhaps, by the waters cool,
By a waterfall and a darkened pool,
Shall bask and dream 'neath a fleckless sky
For a few brief days, and then,—"Good-bye."
But now,—brown floods on the waterfall,
Banked fog and sleet, and the fireside's call!

—Piri Kerei.