Not while I live may I forget
That garden which my spirit trod!
Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,
And beautiful as God.
Not while I breathe, awake, adream,
Shall live again for me those hours,
When, in its mystery and gleam,
I met her 'mid the flowers.
Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,
Beneath mesmeric lashes, where
The sorceries of love and hope
Had made a shining lair.
And daydawn brows, whereover hung
The twilight of dark locks: wild birds,
Her lips, that spoke the rose's tongue
Of fragrance-voweled words.
I will not tell of cheeks and chin,
That held me as sweet language holds;
Nor of the eloquence within
Her breasts' twin-moonéd molds.
Nor of her body's languorous
Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through
Her clinging...

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.

In days of yore, while yet the world was new,
And all around was beautiful to view
When spring or summer ruled the happy hours,
And golden fruit hung down mid opening flowers;
When, if you chanced among the woods to stray,
The rosy-footed dryad led the way,
Or if, beside a mountain brook, your path,
You ever caught some naïad at her bath:
'Twas in that golden day, that Damon strayed.
Musing, alone, along a Grecian glade.
Retired the scene, yet in the morning light,
Athens in view, shone glimmering to the sight.
'Twas far away, yet painted on the skies,
It seemed a marble cloud of glorious dyes,
Where yet the rosy morn, with lingering ray,
Loved on the sapphire pediments to play.
But why did Damon heed the _distant_ scene?
For he was young, and all around ...

"It shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine."
Micah iii. 6.

I asked the Lord: "Sire, is this true
Which hosts of theologians hold,
That when we creatures censure you
For shaping griefs and ails untold
(Deeming them punishments undue)
You rage, as Moses wrote of old?

When we exclaim: 'Beneficent
He is not, for he orders pain,
Or, if so, not omnipotent:
To a mere child the thing is plain!'
Those who profess to represent
You, cry out: 'Impious and profane!'"

He: "Save me from my friends, who deem
That I care what my creatures say!
Mouth as you list: sneer, rail, blaspheme,
O manikin, the livelong day,
Not one grief-groan or pleasure-gleam
Will you increase or take away.

"Why things are thus, whoso derides,

    At first you will know not what they mean,
    And you may never know,
    And we may never tell you: -
    These sudden flashes in your soul,
    Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds
    At midnight when the moon is full.
    They come in solitude, or perhaps
    You sit with your friend, and all at once
    A silence falls on speech, and his eyes
    Without a flicker glow at you: -
    You two have seen the secret together,
    He sees it in you, and you in him.
    And there you sit thrilling lest the
    Mystery Stand before you and strike you dead
    With a splendor like the sun's.
    Be brave, all souls who have such visions
    As your body's alive as mine is dead,
    You're catching a little whiff of the ether
    Reserved for God H...

    I

    A voice cried to me in a dawn of dreams,
    Saying, "Make haste: the webs of death and birth
    Are brushed away, and all the threads of earth
    Wear to the breaking; spaceward gleams
    Thine ancient pathway of the suns,
    Whose flame is part of thee;
    And deeps outreach immutably
    Whose largeness runs
    Through all thy spirit's mystery.
    Go forth, and tread unharmed the blaze
    Of stars where through thou camest in old days;
    Pierce without fear each vast
    Whose hugeness crushed thee not within the past.
    A hand strikes off the chains of Time,
    A hand swings back the door of years;
    Now fall earth's bonds of gladness and of tears,
    And opens the strait dream to space sublime."


    II...

"Where are the visions that round me once hovered,
    "Forms that shed grace from their shadows alone;
"Looks fresh as light from a star just discovered,
    "And voices that Music might take for her own?"
Time, while I spoke, with his wings resting o'er me,
    Heard me say, "Where are those visions, oh where?"
And pointing his wand to the sunset before me,
    Said, with a voice like the hollow wind, "There."

Fondly I looked, when the wizard had spoken,
    And there, mid the dim-shining ruins of day,
Saw, by their light, like a talisman broken,
    The last golden fragments of hope melt away.

The holy mountains,
The gay streams,
Heavy shadows,
And tall, trembling trees;
The light that sleeps
Between the heavy shadows,
Wind that creeps
Faintly, from far-off seas----

The mountains' light,
Waters' noise,
Trees' shadows,
Clear, slow, calm air,
Are dreams, dreams,
And far, far-fallen echoes
Of secret worlds
And inconceivable dark seas.

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...

    After a dream-dim voyage
    We came with sails all set
    Towards the city of the sea,
    And it was wonderful to me
    To find her reigning yet.

    Oh beauty that my eyes and heart
    Had feasted on before!
    The evening mosques were brushed with gold,
    The water lapped a lazy fold
    Upon that lovely shore;

    The gardens of her terraced hills
    Rose up above the port,
    And little houses half concealed
    The presence of a light revealed,
    And here my journey's end was sealed,
    And I reached the home I sought.

    Those windows I had opened wide
    To welcome in the sun!
    Those stairs that only happy feet
    Had measured with their running beat!
    That well-remembered winding street!

I had a dream, a strange, wild dream,
Said a dear voice at early light;
And even yet its shadows seem
To linger in my waking sight.

Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew,
And bright with morn, before me stood;
And airs just wakened softly blew
On the young blossoms of the wood.

Birds sang within the sprouting shade,
Bees hummed amid the whispering grass,
And children prattled as they played
Beside the rivulet's dimpling glass

Fast climbed the sun: the flowers were flown,
There played no children in the glen;
For some were gone, and some were grown
To blooming dames and bearded men.

'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheld
Woods darkening in the flush of day,
And that bright rivulet spread and swelled,
A mighty stream, wi...

In dreams a dark château
Stands ever open to me,
In far ravines dream-waters flow,
Descending soundlessly;
Above its peaks the eagle floats,
Lone in a sunless sky;
Mute are the golden woodland throats
Of the birds flitting by.

No voice is audible. The wind
Sleeps in its peace.
No flower of the light can find
Refuge 'neath its trees;
Only the darkening ivy climbs
Mingled with wilding rose,
And cypress, morn and evening, time's
Black shadow throws.

All vacant, and unknown;
Only the dreamer steps
From stone to hollow stone,
Where the green moss sleeps,
Peers at the river in its deeps,
The eagle lone in the sky,
While the dew of evening drips,
Coldly and silently.

Would that I could press in! -
Into ea...

Beneath the surface of a shallow lake,
Where grasses rank and mammoth rushes grow,
And playful fish their bright fins nimbly shake,
Or madly chase each other to and fro,
The larva of the dragon-fly submerged,
In family large, had taken their abode,
And tho' the waves around them daily surged,
Upon the bending grass they safely rode.

Content were they with life as there enjoyed;
To brighter world they never had aspired,
Had they not felt unfilled an aching void,
And heard a whisper of a life attired
In sapphire robes, 'midst gleams of golden light,
Above their present world, so dank and chill,
Where all day long they wing their happy flight
From roses sweet to lovely daffodil.

But some essayed to doubt if it were so.
Who ever had returned to ma...

Above the clouds I sail, above the clouds,
    And wish my mind
Above its clouds could climb as well,
    And leave behind
The world and all its crowds,
    And ever dwell
In such a calm and limpid solitude
With ne'er a breath unkind or harsh or rude
    To break the spell -
With ne'er a thought to drive away
The golden splendour of the day.
Alone and lost beneath the tranquil blue,
    My God! With you!

Written in an Aeroplane.

1.
A pale Dream came to a Lady fair,
And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!
I know the secrets of the air,
And things are lost in the glare of day,
Which I can make the sleeping see,
If they will put their trust in me.

2.
And thou shalt know of things unknown,
If thou wilt let me rest between
The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
And half in hope, and half in fright,
The Lady closed her eyes so bright.

3.
At first all deadly shapes were driven
Tumultuously across her sleep,
And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven
All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;
And the Lady ever looked to spy
If the golden sun shone forth on high.

4.
And as towards the east she turned,
She saw aloft in t...

Young Love lies sleeping
    In May-time of the year,
Among the lilies,
    Lapped in the tender light:
White lambs come grazing,
    White doves come building there:
And round about him
    The May-bushes are white.

Soft moss the pillow
    For oh, a softer cheek;
Broad leaves cast shadow
    Upon the heavy eyes:
There winds and waters
    Grow lulled and scarcely speak;
There twilight lingers
    The longest in the skies.

Young Love lies dreaming;
    But who shall tell the dream?
A perfect sunlight
    On rustling forest tips;
Or perfect moonlight
    Upon a rippling stream;
Or perfect silence,
    Or song of cherished lips.

Burn odours round him
    To fill the drowsy air;
Weave silent dan...

I am laughing by the brook with her,
Splashed in its tumbling stir;
And then it is a blankness looms
As if I walked not there,
Nor she, but found me in haggard rooms,
And treading a lonely stair.

With radiant cheeks and rapid eyes
We sit where none espies;
Till a harsh change comes edging in
As no such scene were there,
But winter, and I were bent and thin,
And cinder-gray my hair.

We dance in heys around the hall,
Weightless as thistleball;
And then a curtain drops between,
As if I danced not there,
But wandered through a mounded green
To find her, I knew where.

March 1913.

Paul said:

Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever -
We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods,
We pass by spaces that seem endless.
We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up.
But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us -
Ah, we are flying!    Always alongside death...
How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives!
Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked - ha, we
laugh at him,
and the roads, overcome, die with us -
Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world...
Until, on some clear evening
We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree.