OLD BOTANIST'S FAREWELL TO THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17115, 9 April 1921, Page 9

OLD BOTANIST'S FAREWELL TO THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

Fob "The Pbess." Farewell to th« moorlands, farewell 110 the mountains, ' Farewell to tie dark cliff and deep-shad-owed dingle! No more shall I drink from the icy cold foamtains That gush in their glory from out the grey %hingle. No more shall I watch from the high,windy . ridges ' The cloud-ehadows drifting with indolent motion, ■1 lie 'bright salvor rivers, the gossamer bridges,, *i7ho far margin lit with ihe gleam of mo ocean. '■•' No more shall I snatch in the high h'niy places, j WheTO the Maker of Mountains is marvellously ohioudad, • The- glance brief and swift upon infinite spaces, I- The eur<;e in the soul and tho vision unclouded. ■ . \ No more shall I climb in tho pale dawn with passion,' ■ , The dow from ;the snowgrass with eager fcot shaking, ' • And hour', the nnr'-wost wind corao charging and crashing, And break on tho sharp rocks with tumult and quaking. No more shall I see on * d!iy of siil! woathfr Far range upon range to infiaily dwindle, Snow-crowned and ice-girdled, all slumbering together, Erebus and Ancowsmith and d'Arcbiac and Tyndall. \. ' No more E.ha.ll you charm me, dear dainty Ourisia, You broad fields'of mountain-musk atarrad with white.blosrom, ' Euphrasia, Kaoulia, Phyllachne, Celmisia, No more shall you situike the Uoej chord in my bosom. ' No more shall I pore on ihc hard tawny grasses That colour the fitccn spurs and long level reaches, "' ; No more shall I haunt tits high dt-solato passes Where the elfinwood sprawls on the fringe of the beeches. No more" shall I sea, as th« high sun is westering, ■ *,,,,-> In the steep dusky valleys that look to his Thin streams in the late Ught all twining and glistering, i.i> threads oi i'ne silver the puroio gloom fretting. No more shall I hear the white mountain gull crving Among thebaic rocks where the •reat gusts go booming, Sis thousand feet tip where, in rough hollows lying, The broody old taxnsi hang a-drowsing and glooming. I shall see them far off in the magical distance, . , With bloom like a ripe pluii, so fresh and so lender, | They will beckon and woo me and ca;l with insistence, The big shining Alps in their pomp and their splendour. But I canrp no more in the beech-wooded valleys, No move' shall I sleep in the rear of ihn river Or wander alone in 'the cool shady a'leyp, For my feet have come down to 'the lowlands for ever. -A.W.