When the sleeper floats from sleep,
She will smile the vision o’er,
See the veinéd valleys deep,
No one ever saw before.
Yet the moon is not betrayed,
(Ah! the subtle Isabelle!)
She’s a maiden, and a maid
Maiden secrets will not tell.
A NIGHT IN JUNE
The world is heated seven times,
The sky is close above the lawn,
An oven when the coals are drawn.
There is no stir of air at all,
Only at times an inward breeze
Turns back a pale leaf in the trees.
Here the syringa’s rich perfume
Covers the tulip’s red retreat,
A burning pool of scent and heat.
The pallid lightning wavers dim
Between the trees, then deep and dense
The darkness settles more intense.
A hawk lies panting in the grass,
Or plunges upward through the air,
The lightning shows him whirling there.
A bird calls madly from the eaves.
Then stops, the silence all at once
Disturbed, falls dead again and stuns.