She breathèd deep,
And stepped from out life's stream
Upon the shore of sleep;
And parted from the earthly noise,
Leaving her world of toys,
To dwell a little in a dell of dream.

Then brooding on the love I hold so free,
My fond possessions come to be
Clouded with grief;
These fairy kisses,
This archness innocent,
Sting me with sorrow and disturbed content:
I think of what my portion might have been;
A dearth of blisses,
A famine of delights,
If I had never had what now I value most;
Till all I have seems something I have lost;
A desert underneath the garden shows,
And in a mound of cinders roots the rose.

Here then I linger by the little bed,
Till all my spirit's sphere,
Grows one half brightness and the other dead,
O...

I.

Far in the West, where snow-capt mountains rise,
Like marble shafts beneath Heaven's stooping dome,
And sunset's dreamy curtain drapes the skies,
As if enchantment there would build her home
O'er wood and wave, from haunts of men away
From out the glen, all trembling like a child,
A babbling streamlet comes as if to play
Albeit the scene is savage, lone and wild.
Here at the mountain's foot, that infant wave
'Mid bowering leaves doth hide its rustic birth
Here learns the rock and precipice to brave
And go the Monarch River of the Earth!
Far, far from hence, its bosom deep and wide,
Bears the proud steamer on its fiery wing
Along its banks, bright cities rise in pride,
And o'er its breast their gorgeous image fling.
The Mississippi needs no herald...

    I.

    Night, with her power to silence day,
        Filled up my lonely room,
    Quenching all sounds but one that lay
        Beyond her passing doom,
    Where in his shed a workman gay
        Went on despite the gloom.

    I listened, and I knew the sound,
        And the trade that he was plying;
    For backwards, forwards, bound on bound,
        A shuttle was flying, flying--
    Weaving ever--till, all unwound,
        The weft go out a sighing.


    II.

    As hidden in thy chamber lowest
        As in the sky the lark,
    Thou, mystic thing, on working goest
        Without the poorest spark,
    And yet light's garment round me throwest,
        Who else, as thou, were dark.

    With bod...

TO HER LOVER.


Was it the moon, or was it morning's ray,
That call'd thee, dearest, from these arms away?
Scarce hadst thou left me, when a dream of night
Came o'er my spirit so distinct and bright,
That, while I yet can vividly recall
Its witching wonders, thou shall hear them all.
Methought I saw, upon the lunar beam,
Two winged boys, such as thy muse might dream,
Descending from above, at that still hour,
And gliding, with smooth step, into my bower.
Fair as the beauteous spirits that, all day.
In Amatha's warm founts imprisoned stay,
But rise at midnight, from the enchanted rill,
To cool their plumes upon some moonlight hill.

    At once I knew their mission:--'twas to bear
My spirit upward, through the paths of air,
To that elysian r...

Thanks to the morning light,
Thanks to the foaming sea,
To the uplands of New Hampshire,
To the green-haired forest free;
Thanks to each man of courage,
To the maids of holy mind,
To the boy with his games undaunted
Who never looks behind.

Cities of proud hotels,
Houses of rich and great,
Vice nestles in your chambers,
Beneath your roofs of slate.
It cannot conquer folly,--
Time-and-space-conquering steam,--
And the light-outspeeding telegraph
Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base;
The letters do not cheer;
And 'tis far in the deeps of history,
The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.

Aye, snows are rife in December,
And sheaves are in August yet,
And you would have me remember,
And I would rather forget;
In the bloom of the May-day weather,
In the blight of October chill,
We were dreamers of old together,
As of old, are you dreaming still?

For nothing on earth is sadder
Than the dream that cheated the grasp,
The flower that turned to the adder,
The fruit that changed to the asp;
When the day-spring in darkness closes,
As the sunset fades from the hills,
With the fragrance of perish’d roses,
With the music of parch’d-up rills.

When the sands on the sea-shore nourish
Red clover and yellow corn;
When figs on the thistle flourish,
And grapes grow thick on the thorn;
When the dead branch, blighted and blasted,

Unto the soul's companionship
Of things that only seem to be,
Earth points with magic fingertip
And bids thee see
How Fancy keeps thee company.

For oft at dawn hast not beheld
A spirit of prismatic hue
Blow wide the buds, which night has swelled?
And stain them through
With heav'n's ethereal gold and blue?

While at her side another went
With gleams of enigmatic white?
A spirit who distributes scent,
To vale and height,
In footsteps of the rosy light?

And oft at dusk hast thou not seen
The star-fays bring their caravans
Of dew, and glitter all the green,
Night's shadow tans,
From many starbeam sprinkling-cans?

Nor watched with these the elfins go
Who tune faint instruments? whose sound
Is that moon-music ins...

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!, and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right,
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop,
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through ...

Last night, I dreamed of Nippon....
    I saw a cloud of white
Drifting before the sunset
    On seas of opal light.

Beyond the wide Pacific
    I saw its mounded snow
Miraculously changing
    In that deep evening glow,

To rosy rifts and hillocks,
    To orchards that I knew,
To snows of peach and cherry,
    And feathers of bamboo.

I saw, on twisted bridges,
    In blue and crimson gleams,
The lanterns of the fishers,
    Along the brook of dreams.

I saw the wreaths of incense
    Like little ghosts arise,
From temples under Fuji,
    From Fuji to the skies.

I saw that fairy mountain....
    I watched it form and fade.
No doubt the gods were singing,
    When Nippon isle was made.

I

LOVE'S DAWN


Still thine eyes haunt me; in the darkness now,
The dreamtime, the hushed stillness of the night,
I see them shining pure and earnest light;
And here, all lonely, may I not avow
The thrill with which I ever meet their glance?
At first they gazed a calm abstracted gaze,
The while thy soul was floating through some maze
Of beautiful divinely-peopled trance;
But now I shrink from them in shame and fear,
For they are gathering all their beams of light
Into an arrow, keen, intense and bright,
Swerveless and starlike from its deep blue sphere,
Piercing the cavernous darkness of my soul,
Burning its foul recesses into view,
Transfixing with sharp agony through and through
Whatever ls not brave and clean and whole.
And yet I w...

I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes!

And then a voice may meet my ear
That death has silenced long ago;
And hope and rapture may appear
Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain
The form it was my bliss to see,
And only dreams can bring again
The darling of my heart to me.

I have seen that which sweeter is
Than happy dreams come true.
I have heard that which echo is
Of speech past all I ever knew.
Vision and echo, come again,
Nor let me grieve in easeless pain!

It was a hill I saw, that rose
Like smoke over the street,
Whose greening rampires were upreared
Suddenly almost at my feet;
And tall trees nodded tremblingly
Making the plain day visionary.

But ah, the song, the song I heard
And grieve to hear no more!
It was not angel-voice, nor child's
Singing alone and happy, nor
Note of the wise prophetic thrush
As lonely in the leafless bush.

It was not these, and yet I knew
That song; but now, alas,
My unpurged ears prove all too gross
To keep the nameless air that was
And is not; and...

To-night the clouds hang very low,
    They take the Hill-tops to their breast,
    And lay their arms about the fields.
The wind that fans me lying low,
    Restless with great desire for rest,
    No cooling touch of freshness yields.

I, sleepless through the stifling heat,
    Watch the pale Lightning's constant glow
    Between the wide set open doors.
I lie and long amidst the heat, -
    The fever that my senses know,
    For that cool slenderness of yours.

So delicate and cool you are!
    A roseleaf that has lain in snow,
    A snowflake tinged with sunset fire.
You do not know, so young you are,
    How Fever fans the senses' glow
    To uncontrollable desire!

And fills the spaces of the night
    With furious and fran...

Where does Cinderella sleep?
By far-off day-dream river.
A secret place her burning Prince
Decks, while his heart-strings quiver.

Homesick for our cinder world,
Her low-born shoulders shiver;
She longs for sleep in cinders curled -
We, for the day-dream river.

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...

The half-shut doors through which we heard that music
Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence.
The stars whirl out, the night grows deep.
Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain
Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain.
In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep.

Where have we been? What savage chaos of music
Whirls in our dreams? We suddenly rise in darkness,
Open our eyes, cry out, and sleep once more.
We dream we are numberless sea-waves languidly foaming
A warm white moonlit shore;

Or clouds blown windily over a sky at midnight,
Or chords of music scattered in hurrying darkness,
Or a singing sound of rain . . .
We open our eyes and stare at the coiling darkness,
And enter our dreams again.

TOGETHER at the altar we
In vision oft were seen by thee,

Thyself as bride, as bridegroom I.
Oft from thy mouth full many a kiss
In an unguarded hour of bliss

I then would steal, while none were by.

The purest rapture we then knew,
The joy those happy hours gave too,

When tasted, fled, as time fleets on.
What now avails my joy to me?
Like dreams the warmest kisses flee,

Like kisses, soon all joys are gone.

The dim verbena drugs the dusk
With lemon-heavy odours where
The heliotropes breathe drowsy musk
Into the jasmine-dreamy air;
The moss-rose bursts its dewy husk
And spills its attar there.

The orange at thy casement swings
Star-censers oozing rich perfumes;
The clematis, long-petalled, clings
In clusters of dark purple blooms;
With flowers, like moons or sylphide wings,
Magnolias light the glooms.

Awake, awake from sleep!
Thy balmy hair,
Down-fallen, deep on deep,
Like blossoms there'
That dew and fragrance weep'
Will fill the night with prayer.
Awake, awake from sleep!

And dreaming here it seems to me
A dryad's bosom grows confessed,
Bright in the moss of yonder tree,
That rustles with the murmurous West
Or...