Poetry
The Native Star
I HAVE sailed South to a new light, New stars, and seen the Plough
Dip to the Cross, and watched the bright Fish spraying front the prow. Lagoons and pahngroves I have spi:sl, And loom of mangrove tree : Yet craved for a salt heaven wick. Above the English sea.
I have been far afoot among Old deserts. and great hills,
And trailed across the forests long That feed the lumber mills.
At memory of smiling downs Those grander visions pass, For well I know to me the crown's A day on English grass.
I have been mazed and mazcd again Where California glows ; And marvelled at a flowered Spain Her orange and her rose ; I've dreamed Japan, all cherry white ; Yet would I licfer see The Springtime stars of blossom light An English apple tree.
In many countries I have stood Where miracles have thronged To God's imaginative mood, And yet my heart has longed For English sound and scent and scene, Though all my reason knows They'll never be, have never been, Fit to compare with those.
Why this should be, I cannot tell. Of man it seems decreed That he shall feel the moving spell Of his especial breed.
Muezzin call by night and morn : " Brothers, or near or far, Be not dismayed that each is born Under his native star !"
JOHN G ALSWORTH Y.
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