O it was but a dream I had
        While the musician played! -
    And here the sky, and here the glad
        Old ocean kissed the glade -
    And here the laughing ripples ran,
        And here the roses grew
    That threw a kiss to every man
        That voyaged with the crew.

    Our silken sails in lazy folds
        Drooped in the breathless breeze:
    As o'er a field of marigolds
        Our eyes swam o'er the seas;
    While here the eddies lisped and purled
        Around the island's rim,
    And up from out the underworld
        We saw the mermen swim.

    And it was dawn and middle-day
        And midnight - for the moon
    On silver rounds across the bay
        Had climbed the skies of June -
    And there...

'Tis my twentieth year: dim, now, youth stretches behind me;
Breaking fresh at my feet, lies, like an ocean, the world.
And despised seem, now, those quiet fields I have travell'd:
Eager to thee I turn, Life, and thy visions of joy.
Fame I see, with her wreath, far off approaching to crown me;
Love, whose starry eyes fever my heart with desire:
And impassion'd I yearn for the future, all unconscious,
Ah, poor dreamer! what ills life in its circle enfolds.
Not more restless the boy, whose eager, confident bosom
The wide, unknown sea fills with a hunger to roam.
Often beside the surge of the desolate ocean he paces;
Ingrate, dreams of a sky brighter, serener than his.
Passionate soul! light holds he a mother's tearful entreaties,
Lightly leaves he behind all the sad faces of h...

1.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, -
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

2.
Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

3.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,

When all my gentle friends had gone
I wandered in the night alone:
Beneath the green electric glare
I saw men pass with hearts of stone.
Yet still I heard them everywhere,
Those golden voices of the air:
"Friend, we will go to hell with thee,
Thy griefs, thy glories we will share,
And rule the earth, and bind the sea,
And set ten thousand devils free;--"
"What dost thou, stranger, at my side,
Thou gaunt old man accosting me?
Away, this is my night of pride!
On lunar seas my boat will glide
And I shall know the secret things."
The old man answered: "Woe betide!"
Said I "The world was made for kings:
To him who works and working sings
Come joy and majesty and power
And steadfast love with royal wings."
"O watch these fools that blink and cowe...

I.
All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?

II.
If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat’s in the water-butt,

III.
And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret-stairs,
And the locks slip unawares,

IV.
And the spider, to serve his ends,
By a sudden thread,
Arms and legs outspread,
On the table’s midst descends,
Comes to find, God knows what friends!

V.
If since eve drew in, I say,
I have sat and brought
(So to speak) my thought
To bear on the woman away,

    When in the womb of Time our souls' own son
    Dear Love lay sleeping till his natal hour,
    Long months I knew not that sweet life begun,
    Too dimly treasuring thy touch of power;
        And wandering all those days
        By far-off ways,
    Forgot immortal seed must have immortal flower.

    Only, beloved, since my beloved thou art
    I do remember, now that memory's vain,
    How twice or thrice beneath my beating heart
    Life quickened suddenly with proudest pain.
        Then dreamed I Love's increase,
        Yet held my peace
    Till I might render thee thy own great gift again.

    For as with bodies, so with souls it is,
    The greater gives, the lesser doth conceive:
    That thou hast fathered Love, I tell thee this,

Along by the river of ruin
They dally--the thoughtless ones,
They dance and they dream
By the side of the stream,
As long as the river runs.

It seems all so pleasant and cheery--
No thought of the morrow is theirs,
And their faces are bright
With the sun of delight,
And they dream of no night-brooding cares.

The women wear garlanded tresses,
The men have rings on their hands,
And they sing in their glee,
For they think they are free--
They that know not the treacherous sands.

Ah, but this be a venturesome journey,
Forever those sands are ashift,
And a step to one side
Means a grasp of the tide,
And the current is fearful and swift.

For once in the river of ruin,
What boots it, to do or to dare,
For down we ...

With soul self-blind
Do n't struggle on merely at last to find
The best of life, the dream, is left behind.

Why desperately!
Struggle and strive? after long years to see
Substance alone has no reality.

To find, alas!
The starry glitter in the mountain pass,
The light you climbed for is no star, but glass.

Help, one and all!
Dreamers we need, not workmen, for the wall
The Tower of Beauty that shall never fall.

"She was a phantom," &c.

In lone Glenartney's thickets lies couched the lordly stag,
The dreaming terrier's tail forgets its customary wag;
And plodding ploughmen's weary steps insensibly grow quicker,
As broadening casements light them on towards home, or home-brewed liquor.

It is (in fact) the evening - that pure and pleasant time,
When stars break into splendour, and poets into rhyme;
When in the glass of Memory the forms of loved ones shine -
And when, of course, Miss Goodchild's is prominent in mine.

Miss Goodchild! - Julia Goodchild! - how graciously you smiled
Upon my childish passion once, yourself a fair-haired child:
When I was (no doubt) profiting by Dr. Crabb's instruction,
And sent those streaky lollipops home for your fairy suction!

...

Soft stealing through the shade, and skirting swift
The walls of Paradise, through night's dark rift
Lilith fled far; nor stopped lest deadly snare
Or peril by the wayside lurked.
The air
Grew chill. Loud beat her heart, as through the wind
Echoed, unseen, pursuing feet, behind.

Adown the pathway of the mist she passed,
And reached a weird, strange land at last.
When morning flecked the dappled sky with red,
And odors sweet from waking flowers were shed,
Lilith beheld a plain, outstretching wide,
With distant mountains seamed.
Afar, a silvery tide
The blue shore kissed.    And in that tropic glow
Dim islands shone, palm-fringed, and low.
In nearer space, like scarlet arrows flew
Strange birds, or 'mong the reedy fens, or through
Tall trees, of ...

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...

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, - where, like a daisy-bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight glows, - as Ruth, 'tis told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name, - like some sweet bee
Within a rose, - blowing a faery flute.

I.

Where was I last Friday night?
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following the blur of a goblin-light,
That led me over ugly streams,
Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread,
And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams;
Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead,
Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze:
And the jack-o'-lantern light that led,
Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead,
And the owl-like things at airy cruise.


II.

Where was I last Friday night?
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following a form of shadowy white
With my own wild face it seems.
Did a raven's wing just flap my hair?
Or a web-winged bat brush by my face?
Or the hand of something I did not dare
Look round to see in that obscene place?<...

I just had turned the classic page.
    And traced that happy period over,
When blest alike were youth and age,
And love inspired the wisest sage,
    And wisdom graced the tenderest lover.

Before I laid me down to sleep
    Awhile I from the lattice gazed
Upon that still and moonlight deep,
    With isles like floating gardens raised,
For Ariel there his sports to keep;
While, gliding 'twixt their leafy shores
The lone night-fisher plied his oars.

I felt,--so strongly fancy's power
Came o'er me in that witching hour,--
As if the whole bright scenery there
    Were lighted by a Grecian sky,
And I then breathed the blissful air
    That late had thrilled to Sappho's sigh.

Thus, waking, dreamt I,--and when Sleep
    Came o'er my ...

It is the dawn! the rosy day awakes;
From her bright hair pale showers of dew she shakes,
And through the heavens her early pathway takes;
    Why art thou sleeping?

It is the noon! the sun looks laughing down
On hamlet still, on busy shore, and town,
On forest glade, and deep dark waters lone;
    Why art thou sleeping?

It is the sunset! daylight's crimson veil
Floats o'er the mountain tops, while twilight pale
Calls up her vaporous shrouds from every vale;
    Why art thou sleeping?

It is the night! o'er the moon's livid brow,
Like shadowy locks, the clouds their darkness throw,
All evil spirits wake to wander now;
    Why art thou sleeping?

"What's this?" I pondered. "Have I slept?
Or can I have been drinking?"
But soon a gentler feeling crept
Upon me, and I sat and wept
An hour or so, like winking.

"No need for Bones to hurry so!"
I sobbed. "In fact, I doubt
If it was worth his while to go,
And who is Tibbs, I'd like to know,
To make such work about?

"If Tibbs is anything like me,
It's POSSIBLE," I said,
"He won't be over-pleased to be
Dropped in upon at half-past three,
After he's snug in bed.

"And if Bones plagues him anyhow,
Squeaking and all the rest of it,
As he was doing here just now,
I prophesy there'll be a row,
And Tibbs will have the best of it!"

Then, as my tears could never bring
The friendly Phantom back,
It seemed to me the pro...

"Where are the angels, mother?
    Though you have often said
They watched at night around me,
    And safely kept my bed;

"Though every night I listen
    Their voices low to hear,
Yet I have never heard them,--
    Where are they, mother dear?

"And when the silver moonshine
    Fills all my room with light,
And when the stars are shining,
    So countless and so bright.

"I hope to see them coming,
    With their fair forms, to me;
Yet I have never seen them,--
    Mother, where can they be?

"I saw a cloud, this evening,
    Red with the setting sun;
It was so very lovely,
    I thought it might be one.

"But when it faded slowly,
    I knew it could not be,
For they are always shining;
    Why c...

Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day.
Each rules a half of earth with different sway,
Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway.

Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine,
The sun half sinks i' the brimming, rosy brine:
The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine!

Now the swift sail of straining life is furled,
And through the stillness of my soul is whirled
The throbbing of the hearts of half the world.

I hear the cries that follow Birth and Death.
I hear huge Pestilence draw his vaporous breath:
"Beware, prepare, or else ye die," he saith.

I hear a haggard student turn and sigh:
I hear men begging Heaven to let them die:
And, drowning all, a wild-eyed woman's cry.

So Night takes toll of Wisdom as of Sin.
The studen...