December Catfish

Choose tenderly
             A place for thine Academy.
             Let there be an holy wood
             Of embowered solitude
             By the still, the rainless river,
             Underneath the tangled roots
             Of majestic trees that quiver
             In the quiet airs; where shoots
             Of the kindly grass are green
             Moss and ferns asleep between, {101}
             Lilies in the water lapped,
             Sunbeams in the branches trapped ---
             Windless and eternal even!
             Silenced all the birds of heaven
             By the low insistent call
             Of the constant waterfall!
             There, to such a setting be
             Its carven gem of deity,
             A central flawless fire, enthralled
             Like Truth within an emerald!
             Thou shalt have a birchen bark
             On the river in the dark;
             And at the midnight thou shalt go
             To the mid-stream's smoothest flow,
             And strike upon a golden bell
             The spirit's call; then say the spell:
             "Angel, mine angel, draw thee nigh!"