Three memories hold us ever
With longing and with pain;
Three memories Time has never
Been able to restrain;
That in each life remain
A part of heart and brain.

The first 's of that which taught us
To follow, Beauty still;
Who to the Fountain brought us
Of ancient good and ill,
And bade us drink our fill
At Life's wild-running rill.

The second one, that 's driven
Of anguish and delight,
Holds that which showed us Heaven,
Through Love's triumphant might;
And, deep beneath its height,
Hell, sighing in the night.

The third none follows after:
Its form is veiled and dim;
Its eyes are tears and laughter,
That look beyond the rim
Of earth and point to Him,
Who rules the Seraphim.

The dream fell on him one calm summer night,
    Stealing amid the waving of the corn,
    That waited, golden, for the harvest morn--
The dream fell on him through the still moonlight.

The land lay silent, and the new mown hay
    Rested upon it like a dreamy sleep;
    And stealing softly o'er each yellow heap,
The night-breeze bore sweet incense-breath away.

The dew lay thick upon the unstirr'd leaves;
    The glow-worm glisten'd brightly as he pass'd;
    The thrush still chaunted, but the swallows fast
Hied to their home beneath lone cottage eaves.

He had been straying through the land that day,
    Dreaming of beauty as some dream of love;
    And all the earth beneath, the heaven above,
In mirror'd glory on his spirit lay.

And, a...

The silver and violet leopard of the night
Spotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang;
And though three doors stood open, the end of light
Closed like a trap; and stillness was a clang.

Under the leopard sky of lurid stars
I strove with evil sleep the hot night long,
Dreams dumb and swollen of triumphs without wars,
Of tongueless trumpet and unanswering gong.

I saw a pale imperial pomp go by,
Helmet and hornèd mitre and heavy wreath;
Their high strange ensigns hung upon the sky
And their great shields were like the doors of death.

Their mitres were as moving pyramids
And all their crowns as marching towers were tall;
Their eyes were cold under their carven lids
And the same carven smile was on them all.

Over a paven plain that se...

The lights have faded from the little casement,
    As though her closing eyes had brought on night;
    And now she dreams--Ah! dreams supremely bright,
While silence reigns around from roof to basement.
    And slow the moon is mounting up the sky,
Drawing Heaven's myriads in her queenly train,
    Flinging rich largesse, as she passes by,
Of beauty freely over hill and plain.

Around the lattice creep the pure white roses,
    And one light bough rests gently on the pane,
    The diamond pane, through which the angel train
Gaze on the sister saint who there reposes;
    The moonlight silvers softly o'er it now;
And round the eaves the south wind whispers lowly,
    Waving the leaves like curls on maiden's brow;
The peace and stillness make the place seem ho...

Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,
Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep,
Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap
Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound,
Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound,
And all familiar Forms that firmly keep
Man's reason in the road, change faces, peep
Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round.
Yet thou canst more than mock: sometimes my tears
At midnight break through bounden lids - a sign
Thou hast a heart: and oft thy little leaven
Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years.
In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine,
I think thou'rt Jester at the Court of Heaven!


Baltimore, 1878.

The tall carnations down the garden walks
Bowed on their stalks.

Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods,
"What are the odds
That we shall wake up here within the sun,
When time is done,
And pick up all the treasures one by one
Our hands let fall in sleep?" "You have begun
To mutter in your dreams,"
Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams,
And they both slept again.

The tall carnations in the sunset glow
Burned row on row.

Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams,
"To me it seems
A thousand years since last you stirred and spoke,
And I awoke.
Was that the wind then trying to provoke
His brothers in their blessed sleep?" "They choke,
Who mutter in their nods,"
Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods.
And they both slept again.

The t...

The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear
From underneath each hedge and bush and tree,
Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere.


The simple sound dispels the fantasy
Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind.
It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,


To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind
Lisp through the dark thick leafage overhead -
To see the rosy half-moon soar behind


The black slim-branching elms.    Sad thoughts have fled,
Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries
And odd caprices fill us in their stead.


From yonder broken disk the redness dies,
Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams,
Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies,


Blanched ever more and more, unt...

The curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye, -
He strove to speak, - his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race
Flit past the scenes and others take their place;
Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,
His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,
Had died in earnest and were heard no more;
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread
They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,
Had faded slowly through suc...

Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory:
Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave
More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve,
Opening their glimmering lips to breathe some wondrous story.
Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming.
Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart alone
Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone.
Canst thou not see adown the silver cloudland streaming
Rivers of faery light, dewdrop on dewdrop falling,
Starfire of silver flames, lighting the dark beneath?
And what enraptured hosts burn on the dusky heath!
Come thou away with them, for Heaven to Earth is calling.
These are Earth's voice--her answer--spirits thronging.
Come to the Land of Youth: the trees grown heavy there
Drop on the purple wave...

In my dream, methought I trod,
Yesternight, a mountain road;
Narrow as Al Sirat's span,
High as eagle's flight, it ran.

Overhead, a roof of cloud
With its weight of thunder bowed;
Underneath, to left and right,
Blankness and abysmal night.

Here and there a wild-flower blushed,
Now and then a bird-song gushed;
Now and then, through rifts of shade,
Stars shone out, and sunbeams played.

But the goodly company,
Walking in that path with me,
One by one the brink o'erslid,
One by one the darkness hid.

Some with wailing and lament,
Some with cheerful courage went;
But, of all who smiled or mourned,
Never one to us returned.

Anxiously, with eye and ear,
Questioning that shadow drear,
Never hand in token stirr...

"Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,
    O man of many songs!
To thee what is, but looks and seems;
    No realm to thee belongs!"

"Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,
    O spirit caged and tame?"
"Blue clouds like distant hills they are,
    And like is not the same."

"Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,
    Each cliff, and peak, and dome!
In that cloudland, in one high dell,
    Nesteth my little home."

Sound the deep waters: -
    Who shall sound that deep? -
Too short the plummet,
    And the watchmen sleep.
Some dream of effort
    Up a toilsome steep;
Some dream of pasture grounds
    For harmless sheep.

White shapes flit to and fro
    From mast to mast;
They feel the distant tempest
    That nears them fast:
Great rocks are straight ahead,
    Great shoals not past;
They shout to one another
    Upon the blast.

Oh, soft the streams drop music
    Between the hills,
And musical the birds' nests
    Beside those rills:
The nests are types of home
    Love-hidden from ills,
The nests are types of spirits
    Love-music fills.

So dream the sleepers,
    Each man in his place;
The lightning ...

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
    Lie on the landscape green,
    With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
    Had dropt her silver bow
    Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
    When, sleeping in the grove,
    He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
    Nor voice, nor sound betrays
    Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
    In silence and alone
    To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sle...

She's milking in the rain and dark,
As did her mother in the past.
The wretched shed of poles and bark,
Rent by the wind, is leaking fast.
She sees the “home-roof” black and low,
Where, balefully, the hut-fire gleams,
And, like her mother, long ago,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.
The daybreak haunts the dreary scene,
The brooding ridge, the blue-grey bush,
The “yard” where all her years have been,
Is ankle-deep in dung and slush;
She shivers as the hour drags on,
Her threadbare dress of sackcloth seems,
But, like her mother, years agone,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.

The sullen “breakfast” where they cut
The blackened “junk.” The lowering face,
As though a crime were in the hut,
As though a curse was on the place;
T...

As o'er these hills I take my silent rounds,
Still on that vision which is flown I dwell,
On images I loved, alas, too well!
Now past, and but remembered like sweet sounds
Of yesterday! Yet in my breast I keep
Such recollections, painful though they seem,
And hours of joy retrace, till from my dream
I start, and find them not; then I could weep
To think how Fortune blights the fairest flowers;
To think how soon life's first endearments fail,
And we are still misled by Hope's smooth tale,
Who, like a flatterer, when the happiest hours
Pass, and when most we call on her to stay,
Will fly, as faithless and as fleet as they!

Let us peer forward through the dusk of years
    And force the silent future to reveal
    Her store of garnered joys; we may not kneel
For ever, and entreat our bliss with tears.
    Somewhere on this drear earth the sunshine lies,
    Somewhere the air breathes Heaven-blown harmonies.

Some day when you and I have fully learned
    Our waiting-lesson, wondering, hand in hand
    We shall gaze out upon an unknown land,
Our thoughts and our desires forever turned
    From our old griefs, as swallows, home warding,
    Sweep ever southward with unwearied wing.

We shall fare forth, comrades for evermore.
    Though the ill-omened bird Time loves to bear
    Has brushed this cheek and left an impress there
I shall be fierce and dauntless as of yore,
 ...

"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan."
--Old Celtic Poem


See where the auras from the olden fountain
    Starward aspire;
The sacred sign upon the holy mountain
    Shines in white fire:
Waving and flaming yonder o'er the snows
    The diamond light
Melts into silver or to sapphire glows
    Night beyond night;
And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth
    A dew divine.
Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth
    Around the shrine!
Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home
    In thee we press,
Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some
    Vast tenderness
The homeward birds uncertain o'er their nest
    Wheel in the dome,
Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,
    Wheel in the ...

    Sleep is a striking woman
    accosted by various men
    while in a dance;
    the warring desires thus
    present themselves as on
    a battlefield -
    hunger comes arrayed with
    red plumes to befit
    his appetites,
    sensuality somewhat
    decked out as a dandy
    in a mauve waistcoat
    and, of course, there is
    Fear, the most thwarted
    of the suitors, bejewelled with a
    flashing sabre, rattling it from
    the tail of his skinny stick horse,
    the pale charger riding
    to intercept the beautiful courtesan Sleep
    bestowing her favours illicitly
    wherein she would but choose.