RAIN SONG.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 918, 17 June 1903, Page 3

RAIN SONG.

Tho following line poem from an Australian journal gives an idea of the joy on the breaking up of the drought There is music in the Mallee,

Lilting music, soft and low, Like the songs in vale, and valley Where the summer waters flow ;

But au anthem of elation Wedded to a woman’s mouth Is the message from each station From the Mitchell river south.

For it’s raining ! raining ! raining ! Mow the iron roof-tops ring ! llow the waters, swiftly draining, Through the straining downpipes sing ! Every drop a golden rhyme is. Every shower a stanza strong, Ami each day of raining time is Canto sweet of God's great song. Oil, the earth was dry as tinder, Ami her lips were cracked with pain ! From the south to Thargomindah Like a dead thing she had lain ; But, at. last, the long drought, broken She—like Lazarus, the Jew, When the Christ words had been spoken— She shall leap to life a-new.

For it's raining ! raining ! raining ! Don’t you hear the merry din ? Don’t you hear the old earth straining . As she sucks the juices m !

And the swelling creeks and rivers— Ilark ! their mellow madrigal ! Oh, the sweetest music-givers Are the autumn rains that fall ! Oh ! the air is sweet with voices, Sweet with human voices now ; And the anvil-tool rejoices On the plough-share and the plough; Yea. above the joyous heating ()[ the roof-bass you can hear All the choirs of Nature meeting In an anthem loud and clear.

For il's raining ! raining! raining! Over all the thirsty land 1 Don't you hear the old earth straining As the sapless roots expand ? But her famine-days are over. And her smiles shall soon be seen, For her old-time Autumn lover Brings her hack her garb of green.

An amusing instance of tho parading of all tho “ pomp and circumstance of a Court for an infinitesimal result, occurred at the Avon licensing meeting. There were present on the occasion the S.M. and his clerk, a member of tho legal profession, two members of the Fourth Estate, tho sub-inspector, two constables, and two licensees. The burden did not occupy more than one minute,