DREAMER, SAY

Dreamer, say, will you dream for me

A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,

Whose border sips of a foaming sea

With lips of coral and silver sand;

Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,

Or lave themselves in the tearful mist

The great wild wave of the breaker weeps

O'er crags of opal and amethyst?

Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream

Of tropic shades in the lands of shine,

Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream

That flows like a rill of wasted wine,—

Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,

Parry the shafts of the Indian sun

Whose splintering vengeance falls between

The reeds below where the waters run?

Dreamer, say, will you dream of love

That lives in a land of sweet perfume,

Where the stars drip down from the skies above

In molten spatters of bud and bloom?

Where never the weary eyes are wet,

And never a sob in the balmy air,

And only the laugh of the paroquette

Breaks the sleep of the silence there?