New Zealand Night.

And now, remembering, I know again with joy
Those still, cold, mountain nights, when the very stars
More brightly shone, so thickly crusted they with frost.
The valleys deep in darkness lay,
Mysterious and silent. Thrusting in the dark
Long fingers, snow-light crowned the peaks.
Dark trees threw darker shadows on the road,
Whilst from the road black steepness downward sheered
Into the moaning darkness of the stream.

—Margaret Howarth.

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