OUR FOREST CHORISTERS. 205 



3. In the golden lightning 



Of the sunken sun, 

 O'er which clouds are brightening, 

 Thou dost float and run, 

 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun, 



4. The pale purple even 



Melts around thy flight ; 

 Like a star of heaven 

 In the broad daylight, 

 Thou art unseen, but, yet, I hear thy shrill delight. 



5. What thou art, we know not ; 



What is most like thee ? 

 From rainbow clouds there flow not. 

 Drops so bright to see, 

 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 



6. Like a poet hidden 



In the lie-lit of thought, 

 Singing hymns unbidden, 

 Till the world is wrought 

 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not 



7. Teach us, sprite or bird, 



What sweet thoughts are thine ; 

 I have never heard 

 Praise of love or wine 

 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 



8. Chorus hymeneal, 



Or triumphal chaunt, 

 Matched with thine would be all 

 But an empty vaunt — 

 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 



