THE VOICES
Down in the night I hear them:
The Voices—unknown—unguessed,—
That whisper, and lisp, and murmur,
And will not let me rest.—
Voices that seem to question,
In unknown words, of me,
Of fabulous ventures, and hopes and dreams
Of this and the World to be.
Voices of mirth and music,
As in sumptuous homes; and sounds
Of mourning, as of gathering friends
In country burial-grounds.
Cadence of maiden voices—
Their lovers’ blent with these;
And of little children singing,
As under orchard trees.
And often, up from the chaos
Of my deepest dreams, I hear
Sounds of their phantom laughter
Filling the atmosphere:
They call to me from the darkness;
They cry to me from the gloom,
Till I start sometimes from my pillow
And peer through the haunted room;
When the face of the moon at the window
Wears a pallor like my own,
And seems to be listening with me
To the low, mysterious tone,—
The low, mysterious clamor
Of voices that seem to be
Striving in vain to whisper
Of secret things to me;—
Of a something dread to be warned of;
Of a rapture yet withheld;
Or hints of the marvellous beauty
Of songs unsyllabled.
But ever and ever the meaning
Falters and fails and dies,
And only the silence quavers
With the sorrow of my sighs.
And I answer:—O Voices, ye may not
Make me to understand
Till my own voice, mingling with you,
Laughs in the Shadow-land.
A BAREFOOT BOY
A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—
For May is here once more, and so is he,—
His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,
And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:
Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array
Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me
Of woody pathways winding endlessly
Along the creek, where even yesterday
He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—
Yet called the water “warm,” with never lack
Of joy. And so, half enviously I look
Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—
His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back
Like unto the clasp of an old pocket-book.