What sorrow makes the white cheeks wet:
The mystic cross looms shadowy dim—
There where the fourfold powers have met
And poured their living tides through him,
The Son who hides his radiant crest
To the dark Father's bosom pressed.
—June 15, 1896
The Dream of the Children
The children awoke in their dreaming
While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
To the heart-light of the hill.
Its sounds and sights were forsaking
The world as they faded in sleep,
When they heard a music breaking
Out from the heart-light deep.
It ran where the rill in its flowing
Under the star-light gay
With wonderful colour was glowing
Like the bubbles they blew in their play.
From the misty mountain under
Shot gleams of an opal star:
Its pathways of rainbow wonder
Rayed to their feet from afar.
From their feet as they strayed in the meadow
It led through caverned aisles,
Filled with purple and green light and shadow
For mystic miles on miles.
The children were glad; it was lonely
To play on the hill-side by day.
"But now," they said, "we have only
To go where the good people stray."
For all the hill-side was haunted
By the faery folk come again;
And down in the heart-light enchanted
Were opal-coloured men.