A Sunset Fantasy

Spellbound by a sweet fantasy
At evenglow I stand
Beside an opaline strange sea
That rings a sunset land.

The rich lights fade out one by one,
And, like a peony
Drowning in wine, the crimson sun
Sinks down in that strange sea.

His wake across the ocean-floor
In a long glory lies,
Like a gold wave-way to the shore
Of some sea paradise.

My dream flies after him, and I
Am in another land;
The sun sets in another sky,
And we sit hand in hand.

Gray eyes look into mine; such eyes
I think the angels are,
Soft as the soft light in the skies
When shines the morning star,

And tremulous as morn, when thin
Gold lights begin to glow,
Revealing the bright soul within
As dawn the sun below.

So, hand in hand, we watch the sun
Burn down the Western deeps,
Dreaming a charmed dream, as one
Who in enchantment sleeps;

A dream of how we twain some day,
Careless of map or chart,
Will both take ship and sail away
Into the sunsets heart.

Our ship shall be of sandal built,
Like ships in old-world tales,
Carven with cunning art, and gilt,
And winged with scented sails

Of silver silk, whereon the red
Great gladioli burn,
A rainbow-flag at her masthead,
A rose-flag at her stern;

And, perching on the point above
Wherefrom the pennon blows,
The figure of a flying dove,
And in her beak a rose.

And from the fading land the breeze
Shall bring us, blowing low,
Old odours and old memories,
And airs of long ago.

A melody that has no words
Of mortal speech a part,
Yet touching all the deepest chords
That tremble in the heart:

A scented song blown oversea,
As though from bowers of bloom
A wind-harp in a lilac-tree
Breathed music and perfume.

And we, no more with longings pale,
Will smile to hear it blow;
I in the shadow of the sail,
You in the sunset-glow.

For, with the fading land, our fond
Old fears shall all fade out,
Paled by the light from shores beyond
The dread of Death or Doubt.

And from a gloomy cloud above
When Death his shadow flings,
The Spirit of Immortal Love
Will shield us with his wings.

He is the lord of dreams divine,
And lures us with his smiles
Along the splendour opaline
Unto the Blessed Isles.

Victor James Daley

Victor James Daley, born on 5 September 1858, was an Australian poet noted for his lyrical works. Daley’s publications, including his collection of poems

Victor James Daley

A Picture

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

Love

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

Fragment II - Sunset

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

The Old Wife and the New

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

English

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Fragment II - Sunset

The day and its delights are done;
So all delights and days expire:
Down in the dim, sad West the sun
Is dying like a dying fire.

The fiercest lances of his light
Are spent; I watch him droop and die
Like a great king who falls in fight;
None dared the duel of his eye

Living, but, now his eye is dim,
The eyes of all may stare at him.

How lovely in his strength at morn
He orbed along the burning blue!
The blown gold of his flying hair
Was tangled in green-tressèd trees,
And netted in the river sand
In gleaming links of amber clear;
But all his shining locks are shorn,
His brow of its bright crown is bare,
The golden sceptre leaves his hand,
And deeper, darker, grows the hue
Of the dim purple draperies
And cloudy banner...

Victor James Daley

The River Maiden

Her gown was simple woven wool,
But, in repayment,
Her body sweet made beautiful
The simplest raiment:

For all its fine, melodious curves
With life a-quiver
Were graceful as the bends and swerves
Of her own river.

Her round arms, from the shoulders down
To sweet hands slender,
The sun had kissed them amber-brown
With kisses tender.

For though she loved the secret shades
Where ferns grow stilly,
And wild vines droop their glossy braids,
And gleams the lily,

And Nature, with soft eyes that glow
In gloom that glistens,
Unto her own heart, beating slow,
In silence listens:

She loved no less the meadows fair,
And green, and spacious;
The river, and the azure air,
And sunlight gracious.

I sa...

Victor James Daley

Fragment III - Years After

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem
Bound by the spell of a sweet dream;
In the dusk forest, dreamingly,
Droops slowly down each plumèd head;
The river flowing softly by
Dreams of the sea; the quiet sea
Dreams of the unseen stars; and I
Am dreaming of the dreamless dead.

The river has a silken sheen,
But red rays of the sunset stain
Its pictures, from the steep shore caught,
Till shades of rock, and fern, and tree
Glow like the figures on a pane
Of some old church by twilight seen,
Or like the rich devices wrought
In mediaeval tapestry.

All lonely in a drifting boat
Through shi...

Victor James Daley

Dreams

I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of rare and dainty poems I would write;
Love-lyrics delicate as lilac-scent,
Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, and stream,
And songs and sonnets carven in fine gold.

The day is fading and the dusk is cold;
Out of the skies has gone the opal gleam,
Out of my heart has passed the high intent
Into the shadow of the falling night,
Must all my dreams in darkness pass away?

I have been dreaming all a summer day:
Shall I go dreaming so until Lifes light
Fades in Deaths dusk, and all my days are spent?
Ah, what am I the dreamer but a dream!
The day is fading and the dusk is cold.

My songs and sonnets carven in fine gold
Have faded from me with the last day -beam
That purple lustre to the sea-line lent...

Victor James Daley

At the Opera

The curtain rose, the play began,
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.

Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush,
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.

The curtain fell, the music died,
The lights grew bright, revealing there
The flash of jewelled fingers fair,
And wreaths of pearls on brows of pride;
Then, with a quick-flushed cheek, I turned,
And into mine her dark eyes burned.

Such eyes but once a man may see,
And, seeing once, his fancy dies
To thought of any other eyes:

Victor James Daley

Beyond

Cloudy argosies are drifting down into the purple dark,
And the long low amber reaches, lying on the horizon's mark,
Shape themselves into the gateways, dim and wonderful unfurled,
Gateways leading through' the sunset, out into the underworld.

How my spirit vainly flutters, like a bird that beats the bars,
To be launched upon that ocean, with its tides of throbbing stars,
To be gone beyond the sunset, and the day's revolving zone,
Out into the primal darkness, and the world of the unknown!

Hints and guesses of its grandeur, broken shadows, sudden gleams,
Like a falling star shoot past me, quenched within a sea of dreams,--
But the unimagined glory lying in the dark beyond,
Is to these as morn to midnight, or as silence is to sound.

Sweeter than the trees of Eden...

Kate Seymour Maclean