Original Poetry.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2457, 31 December 1870, Page 2

Original Poetry.

THE RIDE FROM THE WEST COA.ST TO DUNEDIN. A CEUISE UPON WHEELS. Romul tlie mountains, through the rivers, Holding on with foot and hand, Splashiug, tossing, pitching, clutching, Rolling o’er New Zealand’s land. Rattling sound of coach behind me, In front the tramp of horses four, Seven long days of inland voyage From westward to the southern shore. The mid-day sun that beats above me, Brings a drowsy sense that steals Half my senses into sleeping Daring this long cruise on wheels. A day midst cascades and tangled wood, Verdure-clad mountains and rollingflood; Another round hills all bleak and bare, Piled, snowy-crowned, far high in air, A day of softest, fairest sheen, Blight waters of an emerald green, A sky of brightest, clearest blue, Low-lying hills of greenest hue ; Fair plains of uddulating look, The far-off snowy-crowned Mount Cook. Round the mountains, through the rivers, Holding on with foot and hand, Splashing, tossing, pitching, clutching, Rolling ever o’er the land. Where the soft sound of the rolling Otira, Laughing and bubbling a silver song sings; Where the loud voice of the rushing Raikaia Rolls its loud notes out from numberless springs.Where W-aitangi’s streams/bornin far-snowy mountains, ; . , •

, " And parted, ! or time, on their race to the Nowiake their reunion, these first-born of Withbudringing cheer and an outburst of • Whefes the broad bed of the Waiwakirari, That gathers its waters from far away And where the swift stream of the flowing Wells up, long unseen, from the source of its founts. Bound the mountains, throngn the rivers, C Holding on with foot and hand. [plashing, tossing, pitching, clutching, Rolling ever o’er the land. lere that mountain pet Whynimi Jolla ever down its silver stream, i where small Waimetes wafers ii the sunshine dance and gleam. .. .jere that rough and wild Taipo Divides in many a winding ranch, nd where that chieftain Rangitata In its three-mile width doth branch. Where the mild Arowanui '« Spreads its clear and sparkling flood, ‘‘And where the rushing, swift Opilu f . Rolls down water, stones, and mud. ■* O’er the hills and through the river, -• Holding on with foot and hand, Splashing; pitching, tossing, clutching, Rolling o’er New Zealand’s land. i, ' Jas. Hisgston. Dunedin, Christmas, 1870.

The saddest part of the capitulation of Metz still remains to be reviewed. According to the statement of General Yon Zastrow, who held the Bois-de-Vaux on the morning : ; of the 19th of August, Bazame could have > avoided being enclosed in Metz. He could, after he was there, according to the Metz k statement, readily have made a sortie and regained M‘Mahon. He could have joined him after most of his cavalry and artillery horses had been eaten; but it, of course, would have been more difficult. Still his f’ movements are said to have lacked determination, and even to have been frivolous in the last two sorties. This is charged to a com- ■ pact in behalf of the Regency, according to ' which the army was to remain in statu quo until the conclusion of the war in Western France, and then become available, with ■ the Prussian consent, for Bonapartiats’ . purposes—Bazaino himself, in that case, to L be virtual Regent. Nearly all the people in ■ Metz believe this, and the most influential have avowed such a belief here