OPALS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 185, 26 October 1927, Page 6

OPALS

PRIZE-WINNING STORY Over in the East a dim light crept through the clouds. A strange calm brooded. Fading stars hung low over the hushed solitudes. The sky flushed and paled, conscious of a coming splendour. Bluish-grey shadows played about the trees in the garden. Out of the East the sun rose, surrounded by a white veil. The last shreds of mist fell away and lo! standing erect in the golden chariot was the Sun god, his hair glistening in the early light. Over in the West a slender white Moon girl glanced at the handsome god as he drove his fiery horses over the heavens. He looked ahead and saw the beautiful maiden shyly slipping over the western rim.

A sudden longing awoke in the Sun god’s breast as he checked the restless horses and gazed across the blue depths, but the place where the Moon girl had been was empty.

On, on, ever onward, the horses plunged over the endless journey. The Sun god leaned over his chariot and peered on the earth, hoping t<\ see the draperies of the fair person who had vanished from his sight. Alas, his eyes were so ardent, so full of fire that he scorched the earth and shrivelled the grass, and mortals said: “Summer is early this year. . . In the East a silver light appeared as the Moon girl rose slowly into the heavens. For a moment she stood poised, a slender figure in her boat as it glided down the River of Dreams that flows beside the Path of Realities. The little craft drifted on and. as the maiden let her fingers trail in the waters, a thousand twinkling stars sprang up.

The Moon girl sighed and a light breeze caressed the earth . . . She turned to see if the Sun god were following, and finding the heavens empty of his presence, leaned over the rim of the Moon boat and wept. Her tears fell and laved the wilting flowers. “See,” said the mortals, “dew is falling . . Heedless of time, the boat glided on, and when in the early morning the Sun god rose, he saw the Moon girl still looking down on the earth. Swiftly his horses carried him across the Path of Realities, but, seeing her moving from him, he sent his sunbeams to tell her of his love. As the sunbeams met the moonbeams they blended and formed precious stones that fell to earth—stones with fiery lights and cold blue depths, surrounded by filmy whiteness . . . Mortals call them opals.

And still the Moon boat sails onward over the River of Dreams. And still the Sun god drives his chariot onward, ever onward, over the Path of Realities.

—Flying Cloud (Lesley du Faur, aged 17).

In secret, out of sight, My days like petals fall; Or dancing beams of light, Which make no sound at all. —Margaret Sackville.