page 18

Drive to North Canterbury

The January sun had veiled
His burning gaze of yesterday,
And his bright glances of the morn
With drooping mists, ere we had hailed
The northern hills; a curtain grey
Was hung about our rural way,
But painted on its shadowy fold
Were, spiral green and level gold,
The willow-trees and fields of corn.

The sturdy wheat’s terrestrial hold,
Established in the former rains,
And sucking yet from source unseen,
Maintained erect those crests of gold
Above the pasture of the plains;
And lively yet, in willowy veins,
Flowed the refreshment of the spring,
Or hidden watercourse might bring
Renewal of their vernal green.

Never, in a remembered year,
Faring by that remembered road,
Stood the crops thicker in the field,
Throve the wheat richer in the ear,
Nor had the bordering willows showed,
Where drain or hidden river flowed,
Such fresh and mossy verdure massed
Against the soft clouds, as they passed,
By a low wandering gleam revealed.

All Summer’s heat burned in that grain,
Embered upon the cloudy veil;
All Spring’s quick energy reborn
In those green leaves… The old refrain:

page 19

Seed-time and harvest shall not fail
Is news the centuries cannot stale!
Painted upon an evening grey
We keep for memory of that day
The willows and the standing corn.

Be thankful, travellers, who greet
The tawny harvest-fields unrolled,
That bread for body’s need is given
And likewise spiritual meat:
For, ’tis the lustre on the gold,
The grace wherewith in green is stoled,
Mid solitude of misty grey,
The careless willow by the way,
That lure the soul from earth to heaven.