AN ASTRAL COMPLICATION.
In periods of sleep, despair,
Of aberration, we have guessed
We were not altogether there,
But seldom known where was the rest.
Our Astral Bodies wander far,
Whenever they will not be missed.
Strange things in earth and heaven are
For the devout theosophist.
Young Wilfrid wooed the wealth of Clare;
But ah, in spite of golden dearth,
His mind and heart approved more fair
Kate's intellect and moral worth.
"Prudence my steps inspire!" he said;
And automatically to
The residence of Clare he sped,
And gained an instant's interview.
"Fairest," he cried, "my homage deep
Ah, not your rank, your wealth command!
These idle baubles, lady, keep.
Give me alone this lily hand!"
"I will," she said. (The dinner gong
That moment sounded.) "Haste away;
But meet me in the social throng
To-morrow—that is, Saturday."
That self-same hour—the clock struck eight—
In Holloway began to muse
The charming and the gifted Kate
On logarithms most abstruse.
Her door stood wide! Who entered there?
'Twas Wilfrid spoke in hollow tone.
"With me life's logarithms share,
Kate, that I cannot solve alone!"
"I will," she answered. "But begone!
Strange chaperons inspect, explore.
The Principal, the stairs is on!"
He sighed, and vanished from the door.
Next eve, amid the social throng,
Serene stood Clare at Wilfrid's side;
And dreaming not that aught was wrong,
She gaily questioned and replied.
Till Wilfrid suddenly was 'ware,
Close by, of a familiar face,
And realised with wild despair
All, all the horror of the case!
"Oh, what is wrong?" cried Clare in awe.
Calmly, he answered. "It was He,
My Astral Body, that she saw.
Oh, which am I? Oh, woe is me!"
East-ern Art in Bond Street.—"So let the world jog along as it will, I'll be Japanese-y still! Japanese-y, Japanese-y. I'll be Japanese-y still!" Can't help singing when we see Mr. East's pictures of Japan at the Fine Art Society's Gallery. This clever artist sojourned in that country from March to September. He kept his eyes open and his hand ever busy, and has brought back more than a hundred pictures—fresh, brilliant, and original. Such marvellous aspects of scenery, such wealth of colour, such novelty do we behold, that we long to start off at once to Yokohama, to Nikkô, to Hakone, to Tôkiyo, or any one of these delightful places—singing. "Let's quit this cold climate so dull and Britannical, And revel in sunshine and colour Japanical!"
Probable Publication.—Companion work to Sardine and the Sardes, by the same author, to be entitled Sardinia and the Sardines, illustrated in oils, and sold in tincases. Great reduction (at lunch time) on taking a quantity.
