My Dead

Last night in my feverish dreams I heard
A voice like the moan of an autumn sea,
Or the low, sad wail of a widowed bird,
And it said "My darling, come home to me."

Then a hand was laid on my throbbing head
As cold as clay, but it soothed my pain:
I wakened and knew from among the dead
My darling stood by my coach again.

Hanford Lennox Gordon

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Hanford Lennox Gordon

The Pioneer

Hanford Lennox Gordon, Simple Poetry

Dust To Dust

Hanford Lennox Gordon, Simple Poetry

My Father-Land

Hanford Lennox Gordon, Simple Poetry

The Tariff On Tin

Hanford Lennox Gordon, Simple Poetry

English

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O Let Me Dream The Dreams Of Long Ago

Call me not back, O cold and crafty world:
I scorn your thankless thanks and hollow praise.
Wiser than seer or scientist content
To tread no paths beyond these bleating hills,
Here let me lie beneath this dear old elm,
Among the blossoms of the clover-fields,
And listen to the humming of the bees.
Here in those far-off, happy, boyhood years,
When all my world was bounded by these hills,
I dreamed my first dreams underneath this elm.
Dreamed? Aye, and builded castles in the clouds;
Dreamed, and made glad a fond, proud mother's heart,
Now moldering into clay on yonder hill;
Dreamed till my day-dreams paved the world with gold;
Dreamed till my mad dreams made one desolate;
Dreamed O my soul, and was it all a dream?

As I lay dreaming under this old elm,

Hanford Lennox Gordon

Lines On The Death Of Captain Hiram A. Coats, My Old Schoolmate And Friend.

Dead? or is it a dream
Only the voice of a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in the lap of the dust;
Only a handful of ashes
Moldering down into dust.

Strong and manly was he,
Strong and tender and true;
Proud in the prime of his years;
Strong in the strength of the just:
A heart that was half a lion's,
And half the heart of a girl;
Tender to all that was tender,
And true to all that was true;
Bold in the battle of life,
And bold on the bloody field;
First at the call of his country,
First in the front of the foe.
Hope of the years was his
The golden and garnered sheaves;
Fair on the hills of autumn
Reddened the apples of peace.

Dead? or is it a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in...

Hanford Lennox Gordon

Isabel

Fare-thee-well:
On my soul the toll of bell
Trembles. Thou art calmly sleeping
While my weary heart is weeping:
I cannot listen to thy knell:
Fare-thee-well.

Sleep and rest:
Sorrow shall not pain thy breast,
Pangs and pains that pierce the mortal
Cannot enter at the portal
Of the Mansion of the Blest:
Sleep and rest.

Slumber sweet,
Heart that nevermore will beat
At the footsteps of thy lover;
All thy cares and fears are over.
In thy silent winding-sheet
Slumber sweet.

Fare-thee-well:
In the garden and the dell
Where thou lov'dst to stroll and meet me,
Nevermore thy kiss shall greet me,
Nevermore, O Isabel!
Fare-thee-well.

We shall meet
Where the wings of angels beat:
When my toils and ca...

Hanford Lennox Gordon

Heloise

I saw a light on yester-night
A low light on the misty lea;
The stars were dim and silence grim
Sat brooding on the sullen sea.

From out the silence came a voice
A voice that thrilled me through and through,
And said, "Alas, is this your choice?
For he is false and I was true."

And in my ears the passing years
Will sadly whisper words of rue:
Forget and yet can I forget
That one was false and one was true?

Hanford Lennox Gordon

The Dead Arose

The dead arose. Long had they dreamed,
Deep in the grass of the still grave,
Of meeting their beloved once more.
They knocked at each familiar door.
They waited eagerly to see
The old loved faces at the door,
They waited for a voice to say
The same old words it said before -
They knocked at each familiar door.
But no one answered to the dead,
No voice of welcome, no kind word!
Only a little flower came out,
And one small elegiac bird.

Richard Le Gallienne

Bereft, She Thinks She Dreams

I dream that the dearest I ever knew
    Has died and been entombed.
I am sure it's a dream that cannot be true,
    But I am so overgloomed
By its persistence, that I would gladly
    Have quick death take me,
Rather than longer think thus sadly;
    So wake me, wake me!

It has lasted days, but minute and hour
    I expect to get aroused
And find him as usual in the bower
    Where we so happily housed.
Yet stays this nightmare too appalling,
    And like a web shakes me,
And piteously I keep on calling,
    And no one wakes me!

Thomas Hardy