Dreams

They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead,
That all of thee we loved and cherished
Has with thy summer roses perished;
And left, as its young beauty fled,
An ashen memory in its stead,
The twilight of a parted day
Whose fading light is cold and vain,
The heart's faint echo of a strain
Of low, sweet music passed away.
That true and loving heart, that gift
Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound,
Bestowing, with a glad unthrift,
Its sunny light on all around,
Affinities which only could
Cleave to the pure, the true, and good;
And sympathies which found no rest,
Save with the loveliest and best.
Of them, of thee, remains there naught
But sorrow in the mourner's breast?
A shadow in the land of thought?
No! Even my weak and trembling faith
Can lift for...

Sleep on, and dream of Heav'n awhile.
Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still seem to smile,
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!--

Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks,
And mantle o'er her neck of snow.
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish--and fear to know.

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast.
--And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A seraph in the realms of rest!

Sleep on secure! Above controul,
Thy thoughts belong to Heav'n and thee!
And may the secret of thy soul
Repose within its sanctuary!

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the
foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade
and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low
on the rim of the sky,
Has awaken in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that
may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled,
the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the
meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in
the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the
wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a
Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come
near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of th...

When on thy pillow lying,

Half listen, I implore,
And at my lute's soft sighing,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

For at my lute's soft sighing

The stars their blessings pour
On feelings never-dying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Those feelings never-dying

My spirit aid to soar
From earthly conflicts trying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

From earthly conflicts trying

Thou driv'st me to this shore;
Through thee I'm thither flying,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Through thee I'm hither flying,

Thou wilt not list before
In slumbers thou art lying:

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

    I.

    The flush of green that dyed the day
    Hath vanished in the moon;
    Flower-scents float stronger out, and play
    An unborn, coming tune.

    One southern eve like this, the dew
    Had cooled and left the ground;
    The moon hung half-way from the blue,
    No disc, but conglobed round;

    Light-leaved acacias, by the door,
    Bathed in the balmy air,
    Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore,
    And breathed a perfume rare;

    Great gold-flakes from the starry sky
    Fell flashing on the deep:
    One scent of moist earth floating by,
    Almost it made me weep.


    II.

    Those gorgeous stars were not my own,
    They made me alien go!
    The mother o'er her head had thrown...

Under the bare brown rafters,
    In his garret bed he lay,
And dreamed of the bright hereafters.
    And the merry morns of May.

The snow-flakes slowly sifted
    In through each cranny and seam,
But only the sunshine drifted
    Into the news-boy's dream.

For he dreamed of the brave to-morrows,
    His eager eyes should scan,
When battling with wants and sorrows,
    He felt himself a Man.

He felt his heart grow bolder
    For the struggle and the strife,
When shoulder joined to shoulder,
    In the battle-field of life.

And instead of the bare brown rafters,
    And the snowflakes sifting in,
He saw in the glad hereafters,
    The home his hands should win.

The flowers that grew in its shadow,
    And t...

Once upon a time, I lay
Fast asleep at dawn of day;
Windows open to the south,
Fancy pouting her sweet mouth
To my ear.
    She turned a globe
In her slender hand, her robe
Was all spangled; and she said,
As she sat at my bed's head,
"Poet, poet, what, asleep!
Look! the ray runs up the steep
To your roof." Then in the golden
Essence of romances olden,
Bathed she my entrancéd heart.
And she gave a hand to me,
Drew me onward, "Come!" said she;
And she moved with me apart,
Down the lovely vale of Leisure.

Such its name was, I heard say,
For some Fairies trooped that way;
Common people of the place,
Taking their accustomed pleasure,
(All the clocks being stopped) to race
Down the slope on palfreys fleet.
Bridle bells m...

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always I tell you this they learned
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,

Sleep! Cast thy canopy
Over this sleeper's brain,
Dim grow his memory,
When he awake again.

Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her wingèd flight
Back to her starry home.

Sleep! Yet thy days are mine;
Love's seal is over thee:
Far though my ways from thine,
Dim though thy memory.

Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her winged flight
Back to her starry home.

'Tis a little room, my friend;
A baby-walk from end to end;
All the things look sadly real,
This hot noontide's Unideal.
Seek not refuge at the casement,
There's no pasture for amazement
But a house most dim and rusty,
And a street most dry and dusty;
Seldom here more happy vision
Than water-cart's blest apparition,
We'll shut out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face.

Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo! the walls on every side
Are transformed and glorified;
Ceiled as with a rosy cloud
Furthest eastward of the crowd,
Blushing faintly at the bliss
Of the Titan's good-night kiss,
Which her westward sisters share,--
Crimson they from breast to hair.
'Tis the faintest lends its dye
To...

Beyond the moon, within a land of mist,
    Lies the dim Garden of all Dead Desires,
Walled round with morning's clouded amethyst,
    And haunted of the sunset's shadowy fires;
There all lost things we loved hold ghostly tryst -
    Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires.

Sad are the stars that day and night exist
    Above the Garden of all Dead Desires;
And sad the roses that within it twist
    Deep bow'rs; and sad the wind that through it quires;
But sadder far are they who there hold tryst -
    Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires.

There, like a dove, upon the twilight's wrist,
    Soft in the Garden of all Dead Desires,
Sleep broods; and there, where never a serpent hissed,
    On the wan willows music hangs her l...

    The lily of Malud is born in secret mud.
    It is breathed like a word in a little dark ravine
    Where no bird was ever heard and no beast was ever seen,
    And the leaves are never stirred by the panther's velvet sheen.

    It blooms once a year in summer moonlight,
    In a valley of dark fear full of pale moonlight:
    It blooms once a year, and dies in a night,
    And its petals disappear with the dawn's first light;
    And when that night has come, black small-breasted maids,
    With ecstatic terror dumb, steal fawn-like through the shades
    To watch, hour by hour, the unfolding of the flower.

    When the world is full of night, and the moon reigns alone
    And drowns in silver light the known and the unknown,
    When each hut is a mound, ha...

My morn was all dewy rose and pearl,
Peace brimmed the skies, a cool and fragrant air
Caressed my going forth, and everywhere
The radiant webs, by hope and fancy spun,
Stretched shining in the sun.

Then came a noon, hot, breathless, still,--
No wind to visit the dew-thirsty flowers,
Only the dust, the road, the urging hours;
And, pressing on, I never guessed or knew
That day was half-way through.

And when the pomp of purple lit the sky,
And sheaves of golden lances tipped with red
Danced in the west, wondering I gazed, and said,
"Lo, a new morning comes, my hopes to crown!"
Sudden the sun dropped down

Like a great golden ball into the sea,
Which made room, laughing, and the serried rank
Of yellow lances flashed, and, turning, sank
A...

Dawn-cool, dew-cool
Gleams the surface of my pool
Bird haunted, fern enchanted,
Where but tempered spirits rule;
Stars do not trace their mystic lines
In my confines;
I take a double night within my breast
A night of darkened heavens, a night of leaves,
And in the two-fold dark I hear the owl
Puff at his velvet horn
And the wolves howl.
Even daylight comes with a touch of gold
Not overbold,
And shows dwarf-cornel and the twin-flowers,
Below the balsam bowers,
Their tints enamelled in my dew-drop shield.
Too small even for a thirsty fawn
To quench upon,
I hold my crystal at one level
There where you see the liquid bevel
Break in silver and go free
Singing to its destiny.

Give, Poet, give!
Thus only shalt thou live.
...

I sat in heaven like the sun
Above a storm when winter was:
I took the snowflakes one by one
And turned their fragile shapes to glass:
I washed the rivers blue with rain
And made the meadows green again.

I took the birds and touched their springs,
Until they sang unearthly joys:
They flew about on golden wings
And glittered like an angel's toys:
I filled the fields with flowers' eyes,
As white as stars in Paradise.

And then I looked on man and knew
Him still intent on death - still proud;
Whereat into a rage I flew
And turned my body to a cloud:
In the dark shower of my soul
The star of earth was swallowed whole.

John-a-dreams and Harum-Scarum
Came a-riding into town:
At the Sign o' the Jug-and-Jorum
There they met with Low-lie-down.

Brave in shoes of Romany leather,
Bodice blue and gypsy gown,
And a cap of fur and feather,
In the inn sat Low-lie-down.

Harum-Scarum kissed her lightly;
Smiled into her eyes of brown:
Clasped her waist and held her tightly,
Laughing, "Love me, Low-lie-down!"

Then with many an oath and swagger,
As a man of great renown,
On the board he clapped his dagger,
Called for sack and sat him down.

So a while they laughed together;
Then he rose and with a frown
Sighed, "While still 'tis pleasant weather,
I must leave thee, Low-lie-down."

So away rode Harum-Scarum;
With a song rode out of town;

Reveille sang its call among the barracks' paths,
And moving air disturbed the tall, commanding lamps.

It was the time when dreams of lust and swarming heat
Set brown young adolescents twisting in their sheets;
When, like a bloody eye that pulses as it stares,
The lamp will cast a stain of red throughout the air;
When spirits, in the burden of the body's sway,
Mimic the struggles of the lamplight and the day.
The air, a face in tears that breeezes will wipe dry,
Is full of tremors of escaping things that fly,
And he is tired of writing, she of making love.

This house and that began to send their smoke above.
With ghastly painted eyes, the women of the streets,
Mouths gaping open, lay within their stupid sleep.
Poor women, slack breasts dangling, cold and lea...

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF MUSIC."


    ... Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,
In wells of rock water and snow,
Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingers
O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;
Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow....

And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,
And soft as the fall of the dew,
Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,
To me was the Dawn when on mountains
Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,
Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,
Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,
In dimples of light and of fire,
Planting her footprints in roses
On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing
Large on her brow is her tire,
Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.

But sweet as the incense from altars,
And war...