What is the dark? Why cometh it? and whence?
Why does it banish all the bright away?
How does it weave a spell o'er soul and sense?
Why falls the shadow where'er gleams the ray?
Hast felt it? I have felt it, and I know
How oft and suddenly the shadows roll
From out the depths of some dim realm of woe,
To wrap their darkness round the human soul.
Those days are darker than the very night;
For nights have stars, and sleep, and happy dreams;
But these days bring unto the spirit-sight
The mysteries of gloom, until it seems
The light is gone forever, and the dark
Hangs like a pall of death above the soul,
Which rocks amid the gloom like storm-swept bark,
And sinks beneath a sea where tempests roll.
____ Winter on the Atlantic.
A Reverie ["Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?">[
Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Why ask when the night only knoweth?
The night — and the angel of sleep!
But ever since then a music deep,
Like a stream thro' a shadow-land, floweth
Under each thought of my spirit that groweth
Into the blossom and bloom of speech —
Under each fancy that cometh and goeth —
Wayward, as waves when evening breeze bloweth
Out of the sunset and into the beach.
And is it a wonder I wept to-day?
For I mused and thought, but I cannot say
If I dreamed of a song, or sang in a dream.
In the silence of sleep, and the noon of night;
And now — even now — 'neath the words I write,
The flush of the dream or the flow of the song —
I cannot tell which — moves strangely along.
But why write more? I am puzzled sore:
Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Ah! hush, heart! hush! 'tis of no avail;
The words of earth are a darksome veil,
The poet weaves it with artful grace;
Lifts it off from his thoughts at times,
Lets it rustle along his rhymes,
But gathers it close, covering the face
Of ev'ry thought that must not part
From out the keeping of his heart.
St. Mary's
Back to where the roses rest
Round a shrine of holy name,
(Yes — they knew me when I came)
More of peace and less of fame
Suit my restless heart the best.
Back to where long quiets brood,
Where the calm is never stirred
By the harshness of a word,
But instead the singing bird
Sweetens all my solitude.