WANDERLUST SATED

We are staying in Alexandra for a few days with the aged parents. There is a dusting of snow on the hills and a bitter chill blowin up the valley. But the fire is on and we are burning the thinnings of Ernslaw One's Naseby douglas firs with vigour. So tucked up in ma and pa's lounge, we are warm of bone and soul.

Today we went for a walk into town and found a new treasure. Wanderlust Books. It doesn't have a website. But it does have a wonderful selection of local and national histories and in a quiet corner a selection of old tomes. We like to collect books with leather bindings...

So today we added to our collection.

Evangeline - Longfellow's great poem - a tiny leather bound souvenir edition from the Evangeline County.
Masterman Ready by Captain Marryat. leatherbound
Poetical Works of Longfellow - leatherbound
and an 1918 Oxford edition of Australasian verse.

All perfectly formed wee treasures in great condition.
Total cost $60 dollars. they were combined going to cost $82 but proprietor Tim Julien, whom we had never met before, decided to give me a discount for my bulk purchase.

Its good to get out into the provinces. Heartwarming... like this poem from J Laurence Rentoul from the Oxford Collection.

From the Austral River

Ah, have you seen Aoranghi rise,
His whitecloud robes unrolled
And lift his prayer to sapphire skies
Gleamed through with pearl and gold,

And Tasman's river strong and fleet
Through timeless nights and days
Chanting for ever at his feet
The thunder of his praise?

Oh, in splendour and the light -
The strength, the grace , the gleam-
Heaven's Gate seems lifting clear in sight
And gods face not a dream!

In that white world without a stain
I saw the new Day break,
And then gaze spellbound, once again
On peak and sleeping lake

I heard the avalanche crashing by;
And while my heart stood still
the glad wild tumult of reply
Pulsed back from fiord and hill.

Then, in the still voice Silence brings
When storms cease, soft and low
I heard God's secret whisperings
Fall round me on the snow.

And never more by eve or morn
Where beauty is arrayed
Shall you count Dom and Matterhorn
The Fairest God has made!