Dreams

Sweetest of all childlike dreams
In the simple Indian lore
Still to me the legend seems
Of the shapes who flit before.

Flitting, passing, seen and gone,
Never reached nor found at rest,
Baffling search, but beckoning on
To the Sunset of the Blest.

From the clefts of mountain rocks,
Through the dark of lowland firs,
Flash the eyes and flow the locks
Of the mystic Vanishers!

And the fisher in his skiff,
And the hunter on the moss,
Hear their call from cape and cliff,
See their hands the birch-leaves toss.

Wistful, longing, through the green
Twilight of the clustered pines,
In their faces rarely seen
Beauty more than mortal shines.

Fringed with gold their mantles flow
On the slopes of westering knolls;
I...

"What hast thou seen in the olden time,
    Dark ruin, lone and gray?"
"Full many a race from thy native clime,
    And the bright earth, pass away.
The organ has pealed in these roofless aisles,
    And priests have knelt to pray
At the altar, where now the daisy smiles
    O'er their silent beds of clay.

"I've seen the strong man a wailing child,
    By his mother offered here;
I've seen him a warrior fierce and wild;
    I've seen him on his bier,
His warlike harness beside him laid
    In the silent earth to rust;
His plumed helm and trusty blade
    To moulder into dust!

"I've seen the stern reformer scorn
    The things once deemed divine,
And the bigot's zeal with gems adorn
    The altar's sacred shrine.
I've seen the si...

It happened thus: my slab, though new,
Was getting weather-stained, beside,
Herbage, balm, peppermint, o’ergrew
Letter and letter: till you tried
Somewhat, the Name was scarce descried.

That strong stern man my lover came:
Was he my lover? Call him, pray,
My life’s cold critic bent on blame
Of all poor I could do or say
To make me worth his love one day,

One far day when, by diligent
And dutiful amending faults,
Foibles, all weaknesses which went
To challenge and excuse assaults
Of culture wronged by taste that halts,

Discrepancies should mar no plan
Symmetric of the qualities
Claiming respect from, say, a man
That’s strong and stem. “Once more he pries
Into me with those critic eyes!”

No question! so, “Conclude, con...

The river hemmed with leaning trees
Wound through its meadows green;
A low, blue line of mountains showed
The open pines between.

One sharp, tall peak above them all
Clear into sunlight sprang
I saw the river of my dreams,
The mountains that I sang!

No clue of memory led me on,
But well the ways I knew;
A feeling of familiar things
With every footstep grew.

Not otherwise above its crag
Could lean the blasted pine;
Not otherwise the maple hold
Aloft its red ensign.

So up the long and shorn foot-hills
The mountain road should creep;
So, green and low, the meadow fold
Its red-haired kine asleep.

The river wound as it should wind;
Their place the mountains took;
The white torn fringes of their clouds

POET.

Enchanting spirit! at thy votive shrine
I lowly bend one simple wreath to twine;
O come from thy ideal world and fling
Thy airy fingers o'er my rugged string;
Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth
The wild sweet song that tells thy heavenly birth--


FANCY.

Happiness, when from earth she fled,
    I passed on her heaven-ward flight,--
"Take this wreath," the spirit said,
    "And bathe it in floods of light;
To the sons of sorrow this token give,
And bid them follow my steps and live!"

I took the wreath from her radiant hand,
    Each flower was a silver star;
I turned this dark earth to a fairy land,
    When I hither drove my car;
But I wove the wreath round my tresses bright,
And man only saw its...

        In the dark night, from sweet refreshing sleep
    I wake to hear outside my window-pane
    The uncurbed fury of the wild spring rain,
        And weird winds lashing the defiant deep,
        And roar of floods that gather strength and leap
    Down dizzy, wreck-strewn channels to the main.
    I turn upon my pillow and again
        Compose myself for slumber.
    Let them sweep;
    I once survived great floods, and do not fear,
        Though ominous planets congregate, and seem
        To foretell strange disasters.
    From a dream -
    Ah! dear God! such a dream! - I woke to hear,
        Through the dense shadows lit by no star's gleam,
    The rush of mighty waters on my ear.
        Helpless, afraid, and all alone, I lay;
    The flood...

They sing the race, the song is wildly sweet;
But thou, my harp, oh thou shalt sing the goal!
The distant goal, that draws the bleeding feet
And lights the brow and lifts the fainting soul!
(And yet, I know not!, Is the goal the place
I dream it is the while I run the race?)

They sing the fight, the list'ners come in bands;
But tune thy chords, my harp, to sing the prize,
That noble prize for which the fighter stands.
And bids his body strain and agonize!
(Yet, if I knew! O, is the prize so bright
As I have thought it, all this bitter fight?)

They sing the work; the song makes labor fair;
But thou, my harp, shalt sing the labor's aim.
The gleaming light, the beauty throned there
That calls the worker onward more than fame!
(But oh, I pray the aim b...

        Oh, you who read some song that I have sung,
        What know you of the soul from whence it sprung?

        Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud
        His secret thought unto the listening crowd?

        Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore:
        You have its shape, its color and no more.

        It tells not one of those vast mysteries
        That lie beneath the surface of the seas.

        Our songs are shells, cast out by-waves of thought;
        Here, take them at your pleasure; but think not

        You've seen beneath the surface of the waves,
        Where lie our shipwrecks and our coral caves.

    Poems are holy things. Eternal Truth,
    Borrowing the robes of song and lovely grown,
    In them her glory unto man proclaims
    And fills his longing soul. They softly speak
    Of Nature's beauty and the secrets old
    Concealed behind the shadows of the hills,
    And love on angel fingers borne to men,
    Naming them over in so sweet a voice
    That music leads their footsteps in the ways
    Where God has walked; and with a lofty Harp,
    As wondrous as the gentle harps of heaven,
    Uplifts, ennobles, soothes and leads the race
    Unto its last great ultimate of power,
    To words of tenderness and goodly deeds.

    1.

    I am one of the wind's stories,
    I am a fancy of the rain, -
    A memory of the high noon's glories,
    The hint the sunset had of pain.

    2.

    They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;
    Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,
    With sister shade and phantom brother
    Across their slumber glide and pass.

    3.

    Twilight is in my blood, my being
    Mingles with trees and ferns and stones;
    Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,
    And there is sea-rack in my bones.

    4.

    Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,
    But I go hence with flowers and weeds;
    I am no more to those who make me
    Than other drifting fruit and seeds.

    5.

    An...

Go, now, and dream o'er that joy in thy slumber--
Moments so sweet again ne'er shalt thou number.
Of Pain's bitter draught the flavor ne'er flies,
While Pleasure's scarce touches the lip ere it dies.
    Go, then, and dream, etc.

That moon, which hung o'er your parting, so splendid,
Often will shine again, bright as she then did--
But, never more will the beam she saw burn
In those happy eyes, at your meeting, return.
    Go, then, and dream, etc.

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens pass,
And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,
Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.
And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,
For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show,
And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries,
When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.

I.

As down life's morning stream we glide,
Full oft some Flower stoops o'er its side,
And beckons to the smiling shore,
Where roses strew the landscape o'er:
Yet as we reach that Flower to clasp,
It seems to mock the cheated grasp,
And whisper soft, with siren glee,
"My bloom is not oh not for thee!"


II.

Within Youth's flowery vale I tread,
By some entrancing shadow led
And Echo to my call replies
Yet, as she answers, lo, she flies!
And, as I seem to reach her cell
The grotto, where she weaves her spell
The Nymph's sweet voice afar I hear
So Love departs, as we draw near!


III.

Upon a mountain's dizzy height,
Ambition's temple gleams with light:
Proud forms are moving fair within,
And bid u...

I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.

My gift would find thee fast asleep,
    And arise a dream in thee;
A violet sky o'er the roll and sweep
    Of a purple and pallid sea;
And a crescent moon from my sky should creep
    In the golden dream to thee.

Thou shouldst lay thee down, and sadly list
    To the wail of our cold birth-time;
And build thee a temple, glory-kissed,
    In the heart of the sunny clime;
Its columns should rise in a music-mist,
    And its roofs in a spirit-rhyme.

Its pillars the solemn hills should bind
    'Neath arches of starry deeps;
Its floor the earth all veined and lined;
    Its organ the ocean-sweeps;
And, swung in the hands of the grey-robed wind,
    Its censers the blossom-heaps.

And 'tis almost done; for in this my rhyme,
    Tha...

The Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.

The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I 'm singing here to you, love;
You 're dreaming there in Paris.

But this is Nature's law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love,
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love,
Still halting o'er his numbers.

I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature's poets wake, ...

‘Twas in the glad season of spring,
Asleep at the dawn of the day,
I dream’d what I cannot but sing,
So pleasant it seem’d as I lay.
I dream’d that, on ocean afloat,
Far hence to the westward I sail’d,
While the billows high lifted the boat,
And the fresh-blowing breeze never fail’d.


In the steerage a woman I saw,
Such at least was the form that she wore,
Whose beauty impress’d me with awe,
Ne’er taught me by woman before.
She sat, and a shield at her side
Shed light, like a sun on the waves,
And smiling divinely, she cried—
“I go to make freemen of slaves.”


Then, raising her voice to a strain
The sweetest that ear ever heard,
She sung of the slave’s broken chain,
Wherever her glory appear’d.
Some clouds, which had o...