WHANGAREI FALLS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 344, 20 February 1889, Page 6

WHANGAREI FALLS.

O'er hill-girded Whangarei's heights I have climbed, Up winding paths stony and steep, Its bone-sirewn hilL caves and deep caverns i explored, And ravines where beauty doth sleep. From the hill tops I've gazed o'er the landscape so fair. Away to the bright sunny sea, Where the white - winged bark ploughs her pathless way, , With, mariners fearless and free. And away o'er green vallsys and gorge-riven . . hills, To where in the blue distance rise The bold mountains, towering majestic and grand, Till they fade in the bending skies, I've stood on the verge of the well-worn rock, Where the river in v haste plunges o'er With maddening leap to the fierce boiling pool, To struggle, and wrestle, and roar. Far down in the depth of the forest I've sat On the brink of the thundering linn, Fann'd by the cool breeze in the noon's ruddy glare, pleased with the clamorous din. Around the huge cauldron, in fantasy piled Are^ dark rocks all festooned with green, The rich verdure glows in the dew's ceaseless fall, ' '• And allures with its beauteous sheen. Entranced I have gazed as the waters inHoam Dash over the crest of the rock, A hundred feet down to' the wild seething flood Nigh stunn'd with the deafening shook. As lingering' l gaze at its hurried descent,' It breaks, and dissolves into spray, Now tossed by the breeze as a light^summer shower. Or wind-driven, snowflakes at play. Here nature's ereat painter illumes with a touch The soft, floating mist in mid air, With the bright feathery wreaths his gay i colours blend, And they glitter like diamonds rare, n the cooling retreat it is pleasant to rost, When fierce beats the sun overhead, Where the forest kings towering aloft in their • i pride, v Inviteto partake of their shade. Here painter, philosopher, poet, and sage May revel in years that are past. And back from the shades the wild savage recall To people the solitude vast. But ever to Him, the Almighty in power. Whose Jemple through space doth extend, The water's full thunder rolls out in a song, "For He poured out the iloods with His ' hand."

Thomas Scott.

• 'The new novel by the initiator of the " Is Marriage a Failure" discussion '(Mrs Mona Caird) will nob deal with any abstruse social problem. It is, however,' the story of an unhappy marriage, 1 brought^ about from r rlifferent motives liyan impecuniousccounfcry iquire his ' Puritanical wife, the victim, of course, being their daughter. Mrs Humphry.: Ward has received £100 in copyright fees from, America. , jThis is not much, considering that in the last nine months the Yankee pirates boaßt of having sold over 100,000 copies 'of "Kobert Elsmere " alone. The book has been published in all sor,tg of editions and at all. sorts of prices fr0m. ,25 cents to^ $2. By^tlie^way, a new English edition is in preparation, which will be-'calHed nc "oabiriet" and be 1 in two handy volume