POETRY.
A CHORISTER IN AVALON.
WHEN in the glass I see the heavy clay Of which I am compact, I also see
A tall companion at my shoulder sway—
The golden ghost a god designed for me.
He is all fire, as I am smouldering ash ; He is all freedom, as I am straitly bound. He is all spirit, I the sullen flesh, The body of Christ is he, and I the wound.
He does not rebuke, he does not pity me, For I am only the shadow he has cast In another star, where earth is a memory Of something small and dark that ends at last, It is the true star, rising in the hush Of a heaven that is wholly in the mind, But passes out beyond it, as the thrush, Perfectly singing, leaves all thought behind.
To that star-music all our song is speaking, To that nobility our saints forlorn ; And all• our dreams no more than a sickle breaking In our hand, and all about us is the corn.
Yet with the harvest orb the silver ear Of the young moon is common in one growth ; So, if this earth be shadow to that star, The single thought of beauty needs them both.
And builds with both, as surely as the arc Of the moon's circle is the undrawn string, As surely as the first note of the lark Has all the substance of an English spring.
And thus to me may cleave the golden ghost, As I to him, in the thought pointing on To where, beyond us both, the poet lost
On earth has found his bays in Avalon.
Hummer Wou'itir
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