The Path of Dreams / Poems

Tho' storm and summer shine for long have shed Or blight or bloom above thy quiet bed, Tho' loneliness and longing cry thee dead— Thou art not dead, belovèd. Still with me Are whilom hopings that encompass thee And dreams of dear delights that may not be. Asleep—adream perchance, dost thou forget The sometime sorrow and the fevered fret, Sting of salt tears and long unbreathed regret? Liest thou here thro' long sunshiny hours, Holding sweet converse with the springing flowers, Harking the singing of the warm sweet showers That fall like happy tears ... dost hear The birds that unafraid assail thine ear— And yet art silent when I whisper? Dear, Dost thou not hear?
Lying so low beneath the bending grass In long, still smiling tranced for aye—alas! Thou dost not harken when my footsteps pass. If haply I some tender thing should tell Thee of the springtime flowers thou once loved well— Anemone and shining asphodel; Should steal from Nature some enchanted lay, Some bird-song lilted where green branches sway— Heart-music that could stir thy heart alway; Should call thee by the old fond name again, Should tell thee all a heart's enduring pain And long rememb'ring, would'st thou mute remain? Alas! nor sigh nor song can thrill the ear Tuned to Israfel's music in the sphere Where things to thee erst dear no more are dear. Thou dost not hear!

Out of the poignant glare, the shadeless heat Of summer noon, beseech thee follow me Into the dim, dream-haunted secrecy The cool, green glooms, the grottoed deep retreat, Of yon old wood; down aisles of lichened trees— Grey Merlins clasped by lissom Viviens Of clinging vine—to cloistered sylvan glens, Where Nature weaves her fairest mysteries.
Here let us rest a little—find surcease For feet grown weary of the thridded street That echoes ever to the ceaseless beat Of human tread;—a brief while know the ease Of dreamful rest, to slumb'rous languors stilled On Orient rugs of dappled mosses spread In nooks where blossom, purple, white and red, The flowers Summer's lavish hands have spilled.