Tranced in the summer night,
Lying far out on the high-breasted deep,
He dreams alone. Lo! In illumined sleep,
White Naiads gleam in dim sea-groves and hollows,
Under the tide-drawn heaving path he follows.
Until the stars slip down,
And to far shores the pale night drifts away;
Then he turns back to meet the break of day,
Through the broad surges in blind rapture leaping,
Until he feels the sand and the foam creeping.
IN THE ANTIQUE SHOP.
All day the silver-headed craftsman bends
Over the broken chain, the gemless rings,
The voiceless clock, the fragile fan, and mends
With delicate fingers rare broken things.
I gaze on him, on gems and glimmering gold,
See light restoring touches, magic skill;
Till to my heart come strange imaginings
Of ruined lives I know, shattered and still.
O Craftsman! Here is mettle, dull and old;
Look on these broken lives. Can’st thou remold?
Can’st thou, with color, love designs refill—
Bring beauty out of sorrow’s patternings?
THE CARDINAL FLOWER.
Wrapped in his crimson gown and cowl,
Beside her slender form he stood;
There by the grassy brook they strayed,
And sun-rise thrush and moonlight owl
Knew that she listened while he wooed.
So blue her eyes, so golden fell
The sunny hair about her face;
She stepped with delicate sweet pride
Along the grasses, close beside
The brook’s cool lily-shadowed place.
“It was a shame that they should go
Thus side by side, at last to part,”
Earth said: “Mine all this color now,
Her soft blue eyes, gold hair and brow,
The red blood in his ardent heart.”
Men say, “They died.” They passed away;
I am not sure what trail they took.
But where the grasses bend and sway,
Red Cardinal flower burns its way—
Forget-me-nots grow in the brook.