O Bush-Clad Hills.

O bush-clad hills,
New Zealand's lavish grandeur,
Majestic, greenly glorious, sheer Beauty's regal throne;
O bush-clad hills,
Sun-lit to blazing splendour,
Or frowning, gloomy, terrible, with storm-clouds round you blown.
O bush-clad hills,
Uplifting human heartbeats
To where those wooded heights above sublimely kiss the skies;
O bush-clad hills,
Blue-beckoning in the distance,
I love the way your Beauty heals the mind your strength defies.

—Hamilton Scott, Whangarei.

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