Dreams

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provenial song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leav...

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched ear:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?
I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
’Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
A...

When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
    Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
    The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
    The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
    And barnyard voices shrilling "It is day!"
Take by his grace a new and alien charm.

But in the city, like a wounded thing
    That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where sickly arc-lights sing,
    And wanly mock his young and shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervor ring
    In many a high and dreary sleeping place.

Oh, thou surpassing beauty! that dost live
Shrined in yon silent stream of glorious light!
Spirit of harmony! that through the vast
And cloud-embroidered canopy art spreading
Thy wings, that o'er our shadowy earth hang brooding,
Like a pale silver haze, betwixt the moon
And the world's darker orb: beautiful, hail!
Hail to thee! from her midnight throne of ether,
Night looks upon the slumbering universe.
There is no breeze on silver-crowned tree,
There is no breath on dew-bespangled flower,
There is no wind sighs on the sleepy wave,
There is no sound hangs in the solemn air.
All, all are silent, all are dreaming, all,
Save those eternal eyes, that now shine forth
Winking the slumberer's destinies.    The moon
Sails on the horizon's verge, a moving glory,
P...

Sitting all day in a silver mist,
In silver silence all the day,
Save for the low, soft kiss of spray,
And the lisp of sands by waters kissed,
As the tide draws up the bay.

Little I hear and nothing I see,
Wrapped in that veil by fairies spun;
The solid earth is vanished for me,
And the shining hours speed noiselessly,
A web of shadow and sun.

Suddenly out of the shifting veil
A magical bark, by the sunbeams lit,
Flits like a dream,--or seems to flit,--
With a golden prow and a gossamer sail,
And the waves make room for it.

A fair, swift bark from some radiant realm,
Its diamond cordage cuts the sky
In glittering lines; all silently
A seeming spirit holds the helm
And steers: will he pass me by?

Ah, not for me is the...

Was it a dream,
Or a whim of the night?
Or did they gleam
Upon my sight
An instant there in the wan moonlight?
I saw them all, I think,
Under the bowers,
The faery folk, in a moonbeam wink,
Disguised as flowers.
First came the Bleeding-Hearts, that hang like bells
Or delicate shells;
Who, gowned in white and red,
Hooped skirts and furbelows,
A long procession led
Of Faery Ladies and their beaux,
Such as the Violet and Early Rose,
Into the ball-room of the flower-bed,
Where they began a Pixy minuet.
Then suddenly, from whence nobody knows,
The Johnny-Jump-Ups glimmered in that set,
Tipping about on tiny flower-toes,
All dressed in twinkling velvet, black and blue,
Faint-jeweled with the dew:
Stout sons of Faërie, Yeomen of the...

Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn
That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread
Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed
Woke the arbutus with her silver horn;
And now May, too, is fled,
The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May,
With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet,
Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay
With tulips and the scented violet.

Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue
And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more
The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor;
The purpling grasses are no longer young,
And summer's wide-set door
O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth
Lets in the torrent of the later bloom,
Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth,
The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder pl...

The night is young yet; an enchanted night
In early summer: calm and darkly bright.

I love the Night, and every little breeze
She brings, to soothe the sleep of dreaming trees.

Hearst thou the Voices? Sough! Susurrus! Hark!
’Tis Mother Nature whispering in the dark!

Burden of cities, mad turmoil of men,
That vex the daylight, she forgets them then.

Her breasts are bare; Grief gains from them surcease:
She gives her restless sons the milk of Peace.

To sleep she lulls them, drawn from thoughts of pelf
By telling sweet old stories of herself.

.    .    .    .    .

All secrets deep, yea, all I hear and see
Of things mysterious, Night reveals to me.

I know what every flower, with drowsy head
Down-drooping, dreams of, ...

I. Franconia from the Pemigewasset

Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil
Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by
And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,
Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden net-work in your belting woods,
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve
Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive
Haply the secret of your calm and strength,
Your unforgotten beauty interfuse
My common life, your glorious shapes and hues
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,
Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy length
From the sea-level of my lowland home!

They rise before me! Last night’s thunder-gust
Roared...

I
i(Ancestral Houses)
Surely among a rich man s flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.
Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
...

        The little loves and sorrows are my song:
            The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
            Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
        O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
        The little cares and carols that belong
            To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
            And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
        Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

        If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
            And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
        Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
            Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
        More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
        Time, looking back at last, should count my ...

        One idle day --
A mile or so of sunlit waves off shore --
        In a breezeless bay,
        We listless lay --
Our boat a "dream of rest" on the still sea --
        And -- we were four.

        The wind had died
That all day long sang songs unto the deep;
        It was eventide,
        And far and wide
Sweet silence crept thro' the rifts of sound
        With spells of sleep.

        Our gray sail cast
The only cloud that flecked the foamless sea;
        And weary at last
        Beside the mast
One fell to slumber with a dreamy face,
        And -- we were three.

        No ebb! no flow!
No sound! no stir in the wide, wondrous calm;
        In the sunset's glow
        The shore shelved low
And sn...

Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
The golden lights go out . . .
The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn,
In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn,
We lie face down, we dream,
We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem
To stare at the ceiling or walls . . .
Midnight . . . the last of shattering bell-notes falls.
A rush of silence whirls over the cloud-high towers,
A vortex of soundless hours.

‘The bells have just struck twelve: I should be sleeping.
But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you.
The woman is dead.
She died, you know the way. Just as we planned.
Smiling, with open sunlit eyes.
Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .’

He folds his letter, steps softly down the stairs.
The doors...

    This song that I sing--
    It is not of a spring,
Nor yet of a silvery stream--
    But of a vision bright
    Which came last night
In the garb of a blissful dream--
    When I thought, as I lay,
    It was Thanksgiving Day,
And I was invited to dine
    Where a table stood
    On which everything good
Spread a feast that was almost divine!

    Where the savors arose,
    Right under my nose,
From turkey--and pumpkin pies;
    And from jolly roast pig
    Were slices as big
As some of the campaign lies!
    And celery so white
    'Twas a thing of delight
To bite the crisp stalks in two.
    And the cranberry sauce--
    Oh, I tell you 'twas boss--
And flanked by an oyster stew!

    Where the bread and ...

O gentle vision in the dawn:
My spirit over faint cool water glides.
Child of the day,
To thee;
And thou art drawn
By kindred impulse over silver tides
The dreamy way
To me.

I need thy hands, O gentle wonder-child,
For they are moulded unto all repose;
Thy lips are frail,
And thou art cooler than an April rose;
White are thy words and mild:
Child of the morning, hail!

Breathe thus upon mine eyelids, that we twain
May build the day together out of dreams.
Life, with thy breath upon my eyelids, seems
Exquisite to the utmost bounds of pain.
I cannot live, except as I may be
Compelled for love of thee.
O let us drift,
Frail as the floating silver of a star,
Or like the summer humming of a bee,
Or stream-reflected sunl...

The night winds howled, the billows dashed
Against the tossing chest;
And Danaë to her broken heart
Her slumbering infant pressed.

"My little child", in tears she said,
"To wake and weep is mine,
But thou canst sleep, thou dost not know
Thy mother's lot, and thine.

"The moon is up, the moonbeams smile,
They tremble on the main;
But dark, within my floating cell,
To me they smile in vain.

"Thy folded mantle wraps thee warm,
Thy clustering locks are dry,
Thou dost not hear the shrieking gust,
Nor breakers booming high.

"As o'er thy sweet unconscious face
A mournful watch I keep,
I think, didst thou but know thy fate,
How thou wouldst also weep.

"Yet, dear one, sleep, and sleep, ye winds
That vex the restless...

He dreamed away his hours in school;
He sat with such an absent air,
The master reckoned him a fool,
And gave him up in dull despair.

When other lads were making hay
You'd find him loafing by the stream;
He'd take a book and slip away,
And just pretend to fish . . . and dream.

His brothers passed him in the race;
They climbed the hill and clutched the prize.
He did not seem to heed, his face
Was tranquil as the evening skies.

He lived apart, he spoke with few;
Abstractedly through life he went;
Oh, what he dreamed of no one knew,
And yet he seemed to be content.

I see him now, so old and gray,
His eyes with inward vision dim;
And though he faltered on the way,
Somehow I almost envied him.

At last beside his bed...

Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn,
Blushing into life new-born!
Lend me violets for my hair,
And thy russet robe to wear,
And thy ring of rosiest hue
Set in drops of diamond dew!

Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray,
From my Love so far away
Let thy splendor streaming down
Turn its pallid lilies brown,
Till its darkening shades reveal
Where his passion pressed its seal!

Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light,
Kiss my lips a soft good-night!
Westward sinks thy golden car;
Leave me but the evening star,
And my solace that shall be,
Borrowing all its light from thee!