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A DREAM IN FEVER
A vast screen of unequal downward lines,
An orange purple halo 'round the rain,
Twists from a space whose very size is pain.
Here in this vortex day with night combines
Ruby and Emerald glint their blazing spines;
Closing and smothering, wheels a brazen main,
A shuddering sea of silence; in its train
A Thought—a cry, whose snake—fear trembling twines
Around—above—alive yet uttered not;
But my heart hears—and shrieking dies of dread,
Then soaring breaks its bands and o'er the rim
White winged it rends the dark with jagged blot,
Glimpsing the iris gateway barred ahead,
And, gazing thro', the eyes of cherubim.
A WOMAN'S PRIDE
I will not look for him—I will not hear
My heart's loud beating, as I strain to see
Across the rain forlorn and hopelessly,
Nor starting, think 'tis he that draws so near.
I will forget how tenderly and dear
He might in coming hold his arms to me,
For I will prove what woman's pride can be
When faint love lingers in the darkness drear.
I will not—Ah, but should he come to-night
I think my life might break thro' very bliss,
This little will should so be torn apart
That all my soul might fail in golden light
And let me die—So do I long for this.
Ah, love, thine eyes!—Nay, love—Thy heart, thy heart!
AGE
I have a dream, that somewhere in the days,
Since when a myriad suns have burned and died,
There was a time my soul was not for pride
Of spendthrift youth, the pensioner who pays
Dole for the pain of searching thro' the haze
Where joy lies hidden. As the puff balls ride,
The wandering wind across the Summer's side
So winged my spirit in a golden blaze
Of pure and careless Present—Future naught
But a sad dotard's wail—and I was young,
Who now am old. Now years like flashes seem,
Lambent or grey on the great wall of Thought—
This is a song a poet may have sung—
No proof remains, I have but dreamed a dream.
IN THE MIST
Ah love, my love, upon this alien shore
I lean and watch the pale uneasy ships
Slip thro' the waving mist in strange eclipse,
Like spirits of some time and land of yore.
I did not think my heart could love thee more,
And yet, when lightlier than a swallow dips,
The wind lays ghostly kisses on my lips
I seem to know of love the eternal core.
Here is no throbbing of impassioned breath
To beat upon my cheek, no pulsing heart
Which might be silenced by the touch of Death,
No smile which other smile has softly kissed
Or doting gaze which Time must draw apart,
But spirit's spirit in the trailing mist.
ON THE MOUNTAIN'S SLOPE
High on the mountain's slope I pause and turn—
Over my head, by the rough crag-points high,
Seems rent and torn the tender hovering sky,
Till almost—thro'—I see a Heaven-spark burn;
Then downward to the sleeping world I yearn
Whose eyes so heavy droop they may not try
To catch the higher gleam—and live thereby—
Youth passes graveward—and they never learn.
Then faint with brooding o'er a careless earth
I turn to Nature and her broad warm breast,
Strive for a friendship with her sun-burnt mirth,
Teach my sad soul to catch her cadence deep,
Dream that in her absorbed my heart must rest;
But Nature smiles, and turns once more in sleep.
TO THE BELOVED
Beloved, when the tides of life run low
As sobbing echoes of a dead refrain,
And I may sit and watch the silent rain
And muse upon the fulness of my woe,
Then is my burden lighter, for I know
The roses of my heart shall bloom again
The fairer for this plenitude of pain,
And Summer shall forget the chilly snow.
But when life calls me to its revels gay
And I must face the world's wide-gazing eyes
Nor find sweet rest by night or peace by day,
E'en seems your love, where I would turn for aid,
As distant as the blue in sunny skies;
Then am I very lonely and afraid.
MY BROOK
Earth holds no sweeter secret anywhere
Than this my brook, that lisps along the green
Of mossy channels, where slim birch trees lean
Like tall pale ladies whose delicious hair
Lures and invites the kiss of wanton air.
The smooth soft grasses, delicate between
The rougher stalks, by waifs alone are seen,
Shy things that live in sweet seclusion there.
And is it still the same, and do these eyes
Of every silver ripple meet the trees
That bend above like guarding emerald skies?
I turn—who read the city's beggared book
And hear across the moan of many seas
The whisper and the laughter of my brook.
BENEATH THE MOON
Give me thy hand, Beloved! Here where still
The night wind hovers 'neath the pallid moon
Give me this fleeting moment; all too soon
The listless day will break upon the hill;
This last sweet night is mine. The tremulous thrill
Upon thy lips is all the precious boon
I begged of Heaven, the garish sun of noon
Is theirs—the rest—mine is this moment's will.
Our love could never be the love of day.
I have not claimed the welcome of thy lips;
No touch save fluttering hand, and for the pay
I gave my minstrelsy of sea and sky.
Once more thine eyes! Now sun-stained finger tips,
Send through the hush of dawn a glad good-bye.