The Garden of Dreams

What shall her silence keep
Under the sun?
Here, where the willows weep
And waters run;
Here, where she lies asleep,
And all is done.

Lights, when the tree-top swings;
Scents that are sown;
Sounds of the wood-bird's wings;
And the bee's drone:
These be her comfortings
Under the stone.

What shall watch o'er her here
When day is fled?
Here, when the night is near
And skies are red;
Here, where she lieth dear
And young and dead.

Shadows, and winds that spill
Dew; and the tune
Of the wild whippoorwill;
And the white moon;
These be the watchers still
Over her stone.

REST

Under the brindled beech,
Deep in the mottled shade,
Where the rocks hang in reach
Flower and ferny blade,
Let him be laid.

Here will the brooks, that rove
Under the mossy trees,
Grave with the music of
Underworld melodies,
Lap him in peace.

Here will the winds, that blow
Out of the haunted west,
Gold with the dreams that glow
There on the heaven's breast,
Lull him to rest.

Here will the stars and moon,
Silent and far and deep,
Old with the mystic rune
Of the slow years that creep,
Charm him with sleep.

Under the ancient beech,
Deep in the mossy shade,
Where the hill moods may reach,
Where the hill dreams may aid,
Let him be laid.

CLAIRVOYANCE

The sunlight that makes of the heaven
A pathway for sylphids to throng;
The wind that makes harps of the forests
For spirits to smite into song,
Are the image and voice of a vision
That comforts my heart and makes strong.

I look in one's face, and the shadows
Are lifted: and, lo, I can see,
Through windows of evident being,
That open on eternity,
The form of the essence of Beauty
God clothes with His own mystery.

I lean to one's voice, and the wrangle
Of living hath pause: and I hear
Through doors of invisible spirit,
That open on light that is clear,
The radiant raiment of Music
In the hush of the heavens sweep near.

INDIFFERENCE

She is so dear the wildflowers near
Each path she passes by,
Are over fain to kiss again
Her feet and then to die.

She is so fair the wild birds there
That sing upon the bough,
Have learned the staff of her sweet laugh,
And sing no other now.

Alas! that she should never see,
Should never care to know,
The wildflower's love, the bird's above,
And his, who loves her so!

PICTURED

This is the face of her
I've dreamed of long;
Here in my heart's despair,
This is the face of her
Pictured in song.

Look on the lily lids,
The eyes of dawn,
Deep as a Nereid's,
Swimming with dewy lids
In waters wan.

Look on the brows of snow,
The locks brown-bright;
Only young sleep can show
Such brows of placid snow,
Such locks of night.

The cheeks, like rosy moons,
The lips of fire;
Love thinks no sweeter tunes
Under enchanted moons
Than their desire.

Loved lips and eyes and hair,
Lo, this is she!
She, who sits smiling there
Over my heart's despair,
Never for me!

SERENADE

The pink rose drops its petals on
The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
The moon, like some wide rose of white,
Drops down the summer night.
No rose there is
As sweet as this—
Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.

The lattice of thy casement twines
With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
About the glimmering sky.
No jasmine tress
Can so caress
As thy white arms' soft loveliness.

About thy door magnolia blooms
Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
A moon-magnolia is the dusk
Closed in a dewy husk.
However much,
No bloom gives such
Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.

The flowers, blooming now, shall pass,
And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
The night, like some frail flower, dawn
Shall soon make gray and wan.
Still, still above,
The flower of
True love shall live forever, love.

KINSHIP

I.

There is no flower of wood or lea,
No April flower, as fair as she:
O white anemone, who hast
The wind's wild grace,
Know her a cousin of thy race,
Into whose face
A presence like the wind's hath passed.

II.

There is no flower of wood or lea,
No Maytime flower, as fair as she:
O bluebell, tender with the blue
Of limpid skies,
Thy lineage hath kindred ties
In her, whose eyes
The heav'n's own qualities imbue.

III.

There is no flower of wood or lea,
No Juneday flower, as fair as she:
Rose,—odorous with beauty of
Life's first and best,—
Behold thy sister here confessed!
Whose maiden breast
Is fragrant with the dreams of love.

SHE IS SO MUCH

She is so much to me, to me,
And, oh! I love her so,
I look into my soul and see
How comfort keeps me company
In hopes she, too, may know.
I love her, I love her, I love her,
This I know.

So dear she is to me, so dear,
And, oh! I love her so,
I listen in my heart and hear
The voice of gladness singing near
In thoughts she, too, may know.
I love her, I love her, I love her,
This I know.

So much she is to me, so much,
And, oh! I love her so,
In heart and soul I feel the touch
Of angel callers, that are such
Dreams as she, too, may know.
I love her, I love her, I love her,
This I know.

HER EYES

In her dark eyes dreams poetize;
The soul sits lost in love:
There is no thing in all the skies,
To gladden all the world I prize,
Like the deep love in her dark eyes,
Or one sweet dream thereof.

In her dark eyes, where thoughts arise,
Her soul's soft moods I see:
Of hope and faith, that make life wise;
And charity, whose food is sighs—
Not truer than her own true eyes
Is truth's divinity.

In her dark eyes the knowledge lies
Of an immortal sod,
Her soul once trod in angel-guise,
Nor can forget its heavenly ties,
Since, there in Heaven, upon her eyes
Once gazed the eyes of God.

MESSENGERS

The wind, that gives the rose a kiss
With murmured music of the south,
Hath kissed a sweeter thing than this,—
The wind, that gives the rose a kiss—
The perfume of her mouth.

The brook, that mirrors skies and trees,
And echoes in a grottoed place,
Hath held a fairer thing than these,—
The brook, that mirrors skies and trees,—
The image of her face.

O happy wind! O happy brook!
So dear before, so free of cares!
How dearer since her kiss and look,—
O happy wind! O happy brook!—
Have blessed you unawares!

AT TWENTY-ONE

The rosy hills of her high breasts,
Whereon, like misty morning, rests
The breathing lace; her auburn hair,
Wherein, a star point sparkling there,
One jewel burns; her eyes, that keep
Recorded dreams of song and sleep;
Her mouth, with whose comparison
The richest rose were poor and wan;
Her throat, her form—what masterpiece
Of man can picture half of these!
She comes! a classic from the hand
Of God! wherethrough I understand
What Nature means and Art and Love,
And all the lovely Myths thereof.

BABY MARY

TO LITTLE M. E. C. G.

Deep in baby Mary's eyes,
Baby Mary's sweet blue eyes,
Dwell the golden memories
Of the music once her ears
Heard in far-off Paradise;
So she has no time for tears,—
Baby Mary,—
Listening to the songs she hears.

Soft in baby Mary's face,
Baby Mary's lovely face,
If you watch, you, too, may trace
Dreams her spirit-self hath seen
In some far-off Eden-place,
Whence her soul she can not wean,—
Baby Mary,—
Dreaming in a world between.

A MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it,
Low in the west; a placid purple lit
At its far edge with warm auroral light:
Love's planet hangs above a cedared height;
And there in shadow, like gold music writ
Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit
Now up, now down the balmy bars of night.
How different from that eve a year ago!
Which was a stormy flower in the hair
Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred,
Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe
Of parting near, and imaged a despair,
As now a hope caught from a homing word.

II.

She came unto him—as the springtime does
Unto the land where all lies dead and cold,
Until her rosary of days is told
And beauty, prayer-like, blossoms where death was.—
Nature divined her coming—yea, the dusk
Seemed thinking of that happiness: behold,
No cloud it had to blot its marigold
Moon, great and golden, o'er the slopes of musk;
Whereon earth's voice made music; leaf and stream
Lilting the same low lullaby again,
To coax the wind, who romped among the hills
All day, a tired child, to sleep and dream:
When through the moonlight of the locust-lane
She came, as spring comes through her daffodils.

III.

White as a lily molded of Earth's milk
That eve the moon swam in a hyacinth sky;
Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by,
Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk:
Bright as a naiad's leap, from shine to shade,
The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier;
Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire,
Flashed like a great, enchantment-welded blade.
And when the western sky seemed some weird land,
And night a witching spell at whose command
One sloping star fell green from heav'n; and deep
The warm rose opened for the moth to sleep;
Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his,
And lifted up her lips for their first kiss.

IV.

There where they part, the porch's step is strewn
With wind-tossed petals of the purple vine;
Athwart the porch the shadow of a pine
Cleaves the white moonlight; and, like some calm rune
Heaven says to Earth, shines the majestic moon;
And now a meteor draws a lilac line
Across the welkin, as if God would sign
The perfect poem of this night of June.
The wood-wind stirs the flowering chestnut-tree,
Whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass
Like crescents that wind-wrinkled waters glass;
And, like a moonstone in a frill of flame,
The dew-drop trembles on the peony,
As in a lover's heart his sweetheart's name.

V.

In after years shall she stand here again,
In heart regretful? and with lonely sighs
Think on that night of love, and realize
Whose was the fault whence grew the parting pain?
And, in her soul, persuading still in vain,
Shall doubt take shape, and all its old surmise
Bid darker phantoms of remorse arise
Trailing the raiment of a dead disdain?
Masks, unto whom shall her avowal yearn,
With looks clairvoyant seeing how each is
A different form, with eyes and lips that burn
Into her heart with love's last look and kiss?—
And, ere they pass, shall she behold them turn
To her a face which evermore is his?

VI.

In after years shall he remember how
Dawn had no breeze soft as her murmured name?
And day no sunlight that availed the same
As her bright smile to cheer the world below?
Nor had the conscious twilight's golds and grays
Her soul's allurement, that was free of blame,—
Nor dusk's gold canvas, where one star's white flame
Shone, more bewitchment than her own sweet ways.—
Then as the night with moonlight and perfume,
And dew and darkness, qualifies the whole
Dim world with glamour, shall the past with dreams—
That were the love-theme of their lives—illume
The present with remembered hours, whose gleams,
Unknown to him, shall face them soul to soul?

VII.

No! not for her and him that part;—-the Might-
Have-Been's sad consolation;—where had bent,
Haply, in prayer and patience penitent,
Both, though apart, before no blown-out light.
The otherwise of fate for them, when white
The lilacs bloom again, and, innocent,
Spring comes with beauty for her testament,
Singing the praises of the day and night.
When orchards blossom and the distant hill
Is vague with haw-trees as a ridge with mist,
The moon shall see him where a watch he keeps
By her young form that lieth white and still,
With lidded eyes and passive wrist on wrist,
While by her side he bows himself and weeps.

VIII.

And, oh, what pain to see the blooms appear
Of haw and dogwood in the spring again;
The primrose leaning with the dragging rain,
And hill-locked orchards swarming far and near.
To see the old fields, that her steps made dear,
Grow green with deepening plenty of the grain,
Yet feel how this excess of life is vain,—
How vain to him!—since she no more is here.
What though the woodland burgeon, water flow,
Like a rejoicing harp, beneath the boughs!
The cat-bird and the hermit-thrush arouse
Day with the impulsive music of their love!
Beneath the graveyard sod she will not know,
Nor what his heart is all too conscious of!

IX.

How blessed is he who, gazing in the tomb,
Can yet behold, beneath th' investing mask
Of mockery,—whose horror seems to ask
Sphinx-riddles of the soul within the gloom,—
Upon dead lips no dust of Love's dead bloom;
And in dead hands no shards of Faith's rent flask;
But Hope, who still stands at her starry task,
Weaving the web of comfort on her loom!
Thrice blessed! who, 'though he hear the tomb proclaim,
How all is Death's and Life Death's other name;
Can yet reply: "O Grave, these things are yours!
But that is left which life indeed assures—
Love, through whose touch I shall arise the same!
Love, of whose self was wrought the universe!"

A REED SHAKEN WITH THE WIND

I.

Not for you and me the path
Winding through the shadowless
Fields of morning's dewiness!
Where the brook, that hurries, hath
Laughter lighter than a boy's;
Where recurrent odors poise,
Romp-like, with irreverent tresses,
In the sun; and birds and boughs
Build a music-haunted house
For the winds to hang their dresses,
Whisper-silken, rustling in.
Ours a path that led unto
Twilight regions gray with dew;
Where moon-vapors gathered thin
Over acres sisterless
Of all healthy beauty; where
Fungus growths made sad the air
With a phantom-like caress:
Under darkness and strange stars,
To the sorrow-silenced bars
Of a dubious forestland,
Where the wood-scents seemed to stand,
And the sounds, on either hand,
Clad like sleep's own servitors
In the shadowy livery
Of the ancient house of dreams;
That before us,—fitfully,
With white intermittent gleams
Of its pale-lamped windows,—shone;
Echoing with the dim unknown.

II.

To say to hope,—Take all from me,
And grant me naught:
The rose, the song, the melody,
The word, the thought:
Then all my life bid me be slave,—
Is all I crave.

To say to time,—Be true to me,
Nor grant me less
The dream, the sigh, the memory,
The heart's distress;
Then unto death set me a task,
Is all I ask.

III.

I came to you when eve was young.
And, where the park went downward to
The river, and, among the dew,
One vesper moment lit and sung
A bird, your eyes said something dear.
How sweet it was to walk with you!
How, with our souls, we seemed to hear
The darkness coming with its stars!
How calm the moon sloped up her sphere
Of fire-filled pearl through passive bars
Of clouds that berged the tender east!
While all the dark inanimate
Of nature woke; initiate
With th' moon's arrival, something ceased
In nature's soul; she stood again
Another self, that seemed t' have been
Dormant, suppressed and so unseen
All day; a life, unknown and strange
And dream-suggestive, that had lain,—
Masked on with light,—within the range
Of thought, but unrevealed till now.
It was the hour of love. And you,
With downward eyes and pensive brow,
Among the moonlight and the dew,—
Although no word of love was spoken,—
Heard the sweet night's confession broken
Of something here that spoke in me;
A love, depth made inaudible,
Save to your soul, that answered well,
With eyes replying silently.

IV.

Fair you are as a rose is fair,
There where the shadows dew it;
And the deeps of your brown, brown hair,
Sweet as the cloud that lingers there
With the sunset's auburn through it.
Eyes of azure and throat of snow,
Tell me what my heart would know!

Every dream I dream of you
Has a love-thought in it,
And a hope, a kiss or two,
Something dear and something true,
Telling me each minute,
With three words it whispers clear,
What my heart from you would hear.

V.

Summer came; the days grew kind
With increasing favors; deep
Were the nights with rest and sleep:
Fair, with poppies intertwined
On their blonde locks, dreamy hours,
Sunny-hearted as the rose,
Went among the banded flowers,
Teaching them, how no one knows,
Fresher color and perfume.—
In the window of your room
Bloomed a rich azalea. Pink,
As an egret's rosy plumes,
Shone its tender-tufted blooms.
From your care and love, I think,
Love's rose-color it did drink,
Growing rosier day by day
Of your 'tending hand's caress;
And your own dear naturalness
Had imbued it in some way.
Once you gave a blossom of it,
Smiling, to me when I left:
Need I tell you how I love it
Faded though it is now!—Reft
Of its fragrance and its color,
Yet 'tis dearer now than then,
As past happiness is when
We regret. And dimmer, duller
Though its beauty be, when I
Look upon it, I recall
Every part of that old wall;
And the dingy window high,
Where you sat and read; and all
The fond love that made your face
A soft sunbeam in that place:
And the plant, that grew this bloom
Withered here, itself long dead,
Makes a halo overhead
There again—and through my room,
Like faint whispers of perfume,
Steal the words of love then said.

VI.

All of my love I send to you,
I send to you,
On thoughts, like paths, that wend to you,
Here in my heart's glad garden,
Wherein, its lovely warden,
Your face, a lily seeming,
Is dreaming.

All of my life I bring to you,
I bring to you,
In deeds, like birds, that sing to you,
Here, in my soul's sweet valley,
Wherethrough, most musically,
Your love, a fountain, glistens,
And listens.

My love, my life, how blessed in you!
How blessed in you!
Whose thoughts, whose deeds find rest in you,
Here, on my self's dark ocean,
Whereo'er, in heavenly motion,
Your soul, a star, abideth,
And guideth.

VII.

Where the old Kentucky wound
Through the land,—its stream between
Hills of primitive forest green,—
Like a goodly belt around
Giant breasts of grandeur; with
Many an unknown Indian myth,
On the boat we steamed. The land
Like an hospitable hand
Welcomed us. Alone we sat
On the under-deck, and saw
Farm-house and plantation draw
Near and vanish. 'Neath your hat,
Your young eyes laughed; and your hair,
Blown about them by the air
Of our passage, clung and curled.
Music, and the summer moon;
And the hills' great shadows hewn
Out of silence; and the tune
Of the whistle, when we whirled
Round a moonlit bend in sight of
Some lone landing heaped with hay
Or tobacco; where the light of
One dim solitary lamp
Signaled through the evening's damp:
Then a bell; and, dusky gray,
Shuffling figures on the shore
With the cable; rugged forms
On the gang-plank; backs and arms
With their cargo bending o'er;
And the burly mate before.
Then an iron bell, and puff
Of escaping steam; and out
Where the stream is wheel-whipped rough;
Music, and a parting shout
From the shore; the pilot's bell
Beating on the deck below;
Then the steady, quivering, slow
Smooth advance again. Until
Twinkling lights beyond us tell
There's a lock or little town,
Clasped between a hill and hill,
Where the blue-grass fields slope down.—
So we went. That summer-time
Lingers with me like a rhyme
Learned for dreamy beauty of
Its old-fashioned faith and love,
In some musing moment; sith
Heart-associated with
Joy that moment's quiet bore,
Thought repeated evermore.

VIII.

Three sweet things love lives upon:
Music, at whose fountain's brink
Still he stoops his face to drink;
Seeing, as the wave is drawn,
His own image rise and sink.
Three sweet things love lives upon.

Three sweet things love lives upon:
Odor, whose red roses wreathe
His bright brow that shines beneath;
Hearing, as each bud is blown,
His own spirit breathe and breathe.
Three sweet things love lives upon.

Three sweet things love lives upon:
Color, to whose rainbow he
Lifts his dark eyes burningly;
Feeling, as the wild hues dawn,
His own immortality.
Three sweet things love lives upon.

IX.

Memories of other days,
With the whilom happiness,
Rise before my musing gaze
In the twilight ... And your dress
Seems beside me, like a haze
Shimmering white; as when we went
'Neath the star-strewn firmament,
Love-led, with impatient feet
Down the night that, summer-sweet,
Sparkled o'er the lamp-lit street.
Every look love gave us then
Comes before my eyes again,
Making music for my heart
On that path, that grew for us
Roses, red and amorous,
On that path, from which oft start,
Out of recollected places,
With remembered forms and faces,
Dreams, love's ardent hands have woven
In my life's dark tapestry,
Beckoning, soft and shadowy,
To the soul. And o'er the cloven
Gulf of time, I seem to hear
Words, once whispered in the ear,
Calling—as might friends long dead,
With familiar voices, deep,
Speak to those who lie asleep,
Comforting—So I was led
Backward to forgotten things,
Contiguities that spread
Sudden unremembered wings;
And across my mind's still blue
From the nest they fledged in, flew
Dazzling shapes affection knew.

X.

Ah! over full my heart is
Of sadness and of pain;
As a rose-flower in the garden
The dull dusk fills with rain;
As a blown red rose that shivers
And bends to the wind and rain.

So give me thy hands and speak me
As once in the days of yore,
When love spoke sweetly to us,
The love that speaks no more;
The sound of thy voice may help him
To speak in our hearts once more.

Ah! over grieved my soul is,
And tired and sick for sleep,
As a poppy-bloom that withers,
Forgotten, where reapers reap;
As a harvested poppy-flower
That dies where reapers reap.

So bend to my face and kiss me
As once in the days of yore,
When the touch of thy lips was magic
That restored to life once more;
The thought of thy kiss, which awakens
To life that love once more.

XI.

Sitting often I have, oh!
Often have desired you so—
Yearned to kiss you as I did
When your love to me you gave,
In the moonlight, by the wave,
And a long impetuous kiss
Pressed upon your mouth that chid,
And upon each dewy lid—
That, all passion-shaken, I
With love language will address
Each dear thing I know you by,
Picture, needle-work or frame:
Each suggestive in the same
Perfume of past happiness:
Till, meseems, the ways we knew
Now again I tread with you
From the oldtime tryst: and there
Feel the pressure of your hair
Cool and easy on my cheek,
And your breath's aroma: bare
Hand upon my arm, as weak
As a lily on a stream:
And your eyes, that gaze at me
With the sometime witchery,
To my inmost spirit speak.
And remembered ecstacy
Sweeps my soul again ... I seem
Dreaming, yet I do not dream.

The Garden of Dreams

About This Book

REST

CLAIRVOYANCE

INDIFFERENCE

PICTURED

SERENADE

KINSHIP

I.

II.

III.

SHE IS SO MUCH

HER EYES

MESSENGERS

AT TWENTY-ONE

BABY MARY

TO LITTLE M. E. C. G.

A MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

A REED SHAKEN WITH THE WIND

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.