To distil a few golden drops of song
Through the gloom of this hour;
To filter true emotions
Through passion's burning fire
When the sun bubble-like fades in the west;
As our being craves for night's rest
That pool of silver in life's forest of distress.
To light some pale candles
In the cavern of a lonely isle
And draw the wine of day
From the must of midnight,
Or plant a star-seed in the gray-ploughed eve—
So out of the abyss of the blackness of night
Dawn's million-colored fountain might spring.
39
WANDERER
The silvery beach, a riband around the flowing hair of the sea,
Where gleam the foam-flowers garlanded in multitudinous nebulous rings:
Here, on the frontier of many worlds and the billow-rocked cradle of eternal sleep,
No sound, no music, no silence that a wounded soul can heal.
A longing more tempestuous than the craven breeze-possesséd deep,
And tears that outweigh the salt of the woeful brine,
Yet no sleep dream-robbed, or dream-laden, nor even death's pallid peace;
But a ceaseless crying over my heart's forsaken valleys
Where love like a wraith haunts the empty tombs of memory.