'Tis the maiden April calling,—
Calling to the languid South,—
Where she lounges in the sunshine
With a secret at her mouth.
Where she lounges with the sunshine
Closely fondled to her breast.
Calling for that fickle lover,
Wanders with his old unrest.
And her lips are full and luscious,
Where a thousand joys have kissed—
Ah! I must unto her garden,
Lo! I tremble for the tryst.
For her couch it is a languor
Cushioned for a passion rest,
Woven out of dreams and sunshine,
Pillowed with her pulsing breast.
And I clasp her warm embraces,
Kissing deep her dewy lips,
Like a bee upon a blossom,
Where the honey breathes and drips;
Lie within her warm embraces
Till the wildest passions wane—
Fall to dreaming of Nirvana
Pictured through a golden rain.
There adream with dreaming April
In the gentle southern land,
Hearing footsteps onward pressing,
Only she might understand.
Feel the cool wind fan the forehead,
Drink the mellow wine he brings,
Till the spirit drunk to fervor
Sweeps its own Æolean strings.
Hear the music of the vanished,
Join the far and lyric throng
Of the rare and radiant singers
In the starry skies of song.
Hear with soul all hushed and quickened,
Wrapt in fine unconscious ears,
Music singing unto music,
In the bright Æolean spheres.
Till the Past is wed to Present
In the golden hall of Time,
And the Future brings a garland
From his pure and crystal clime.
Seeing then that life is rainfall,
Falling on a dreaming sea,
With a touch of speeding rainbows,
Hinting all eternity.
Seeing then, that dreaming ocean,
Drinking all the golden rain—
Call it death or dark oblivion,
Drinks and yields it back again.
Seeing past is not the total,
Seeing present not the last—
Is the future uncreated?
Nay 'tis older than the past.
Is today a mighty time-wall
Beaten outward by the waves?
Nay, it is the crystal mirror
Where an image still enslaves.
Seeing space is only measured
With an atom of the soul;
Seeing Space and Time are brothers
Racing from what goal to goal?
Seeing systems all unnumbered,
Numbered by their vanished race;
Seeing Time among his diamonds,
Launching systems unto Space.
Till the Soul turns back to April
Faint with seeing, and the seen
There in dreams to wait and linger
For the rainfalls iris sheen.
Ah! 'tis only dreams that linger,
For a vision or a sound—
Ling'ring only, asking never
How and whence, or whither bound.
Only dreams that linger, hearing
Songs across the blue clad hills
From the lakes of cool savannahs,
Where the mirror fills and fills.
Hearing from the cool savannahs
Magic strains and elfin horns,
Heralding across the plainlands
Greater than the olden morns.
Dawnings to the world from dreamland
Where the souls of song are tryst
Covering over facts and angles
With the artful truth of mist.
Then the world is recreated
With the Supermen of dreams,
With the men from out the future
Coming down the crystal streams;
Comes the painter mixing soul-tints
In his fine unconscious eye—
Comes the sculptor opening marbles
Where his dreaming godheads lie;
Comes embodied music seeing
All of Heaven in a sound—
Call him man or rapt musician,
Neither yet is wholly bound.
Comes the poet sweeping soul-strings
Lo! the painter dreams again,
Finds another golden pigment
In the minelands of his brain.
Comes the poet sweeping soul-strings,
Lo! the sculptor dreams again,
Frees a rarer winged spirit
In his blue marmorean brain.
Comes the poet sweeping soul-strings,
Lo! the music dreams again,
Finds another golden concord
In the silence of his brain.
There again the Bard of Avon,
Music names him not in words,
Singing to a raptured eon
All that life and death engirds.
There is Shelly, diamond hearted,
Singing lightning scintilant,
Wanting still a rarer lustre,
Sweeter ever than his want.
There is framed and fashioned music,
Keats the golden tongue of song.
Browning crowned with highest heaven
Ruling all of right and wrong.
There is Mifflin toying jewels,
His own magic art hath wrought,
Tracing dreams and fancies
In the crystal depths of thought.
There is Carman of the Northland
Singing all the music of the north.
Beauty urging on his music,
Wagering all her soul is worth.
Goethe arm in arm with Hauptman
In the vine-clad hills of Rhine,
Hushed to catch the simplest whisper
From the great Norwegian Pine.
All the Kings of dainty fancy,
All the Kings of mighty song,
All the Kings of love and laughter,
All the Kings of right and wrong,
All the Kings of all the kingdoms,
To the farthest bounds of art,
Meeting on the swards of dreamland,
Ages can not bind apart.
Thus the world is recreated
With the Supermen of time,
Bearing on in royal pageant,
All of fullness and of prime.
Thus the world is recreated
With the Supermen of dreams,
Footsteps onward pressing,
Plashing oars on crystal streams.
Silver lakes, and cool savannahs,
Mirrored in the blue clad hills,
Dream miragéd, dim oases
Where the spirit drinks and fills.
Wanting not a dear companion,
Wanting not the yester years,
Thus the world is recreated,
And the ring'd horizon clears.
And I turn again to April,
Maiden princess of the south;
Lo! the secret now has blossomed
To a white rose at her mouth. |