Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.
Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
There was a shutter loose,--it screeched!
Swung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--
I was afraid, and turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,
Under my hand the moonlight lay!
Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
But if I weep it will not matter,--
Ah, it is good to feel you there!
Have any of you, passers-by,
Had an old tooth that was an unceasing discomfort?
Or a pain in the side that never quite left you?
Or a malignant growth that grew with time?
So that even in profoundest slumber
There was shadowy consciousness or the phantom of thought
Of the tooth, the side, the growth?
Even so thwarted love, or defeated ambition,
Or a blunder in life which mixed your life
Hopelessly to the end,
Will like a tooth, or a pain in the side,
Float through your dreams in the final sleep
Till perfect freedom from the earth-sphere
Comes to you as one who wakes
Healed and glad in the morning!
I was sixteen, and I had the most terrible dreams,
And specks before my eyes, and nervous weakness.
And I couldn’t remember the books I read,
Like Frank Drummer who memorized page after page.
And my back was weak, and I worried and worried,
And I was embarrassed and stammered my lessons,
And when I stood up to recite I’d forget
Everything that I had studied.
Well, I saw Dr. Weese’s advertisement,
And there I read everything in print,
Just as if he had known me;
And about the dreams which I couldn’t help.
So I knew I was marked for an early grave.
And I worried until I had a cough
And then the dreams stopped.
And then I slept the sleep without dreams
Softly blow lightly
O twilight breeze
Scarcely bend slightly
O silver trees:
Night glides slowly down hill ... down stream
Bringing a myriad star-twinkling dream....
Softly blow lightly
O twilight breeze
Scarcely bend slightly
O silver trees:
Night will spill sleep in your day weary eye
While a soft yellow moon steals down the sky....
Softly blow
Scarcely bend
So ...!
Lullaby....
By the sea of sleep walks white-robed Night;
The breeze but the faint rustle of her drapery
That calls the mist-made bark of dream
From the cavern of the Unknown to sail to us,
Laden with endless star-like fancies.
And She! the magician, walks on and on
Over the sapphire embankment of the sky
Like a moving magnet drawing behind her a million dream-argosies.
The rosy mist stilly polishes the round mirror,
The moon;
Golden her face
Reflecting the cool sweet glory of a
Baby sun
When dangling
His short golden arms in the cradle of the sky
After night
Gave him birth,
And herself died as day dies to see the moon,
This golden
Rose-washed stone
That the unseen hand puts on the crown of night
Beside it puts
Bits of white--
The star-jewels like million fancies, worshipping
Like tears shed over a dream,
Like sighs that stream
In an unseen nameless way
Into the heart of our lay.
It seemed hour on hours,
Years like fading flowers
Scattered their petals and bloom
In a half-lit forest of gloom.
The softness of its sounds,
Like the coursing of a million hounds
Of dream over the glade of sleep
Where tortured silences creep.
Exquisite, pain-laden, peaceful,
This night most beautiful,
What love forsaken by loving
Sets his heart a'singing?
The Dream of his Soul, in flesh and blood--
Not to possess, but only to see--
Was given him, for an hour:
Ah, fool, he lingered longer,--
The Dream died like the shadow of a Star!
The moonlight and the leaves,
Bells, these.
With tongues of silence;
Chiming in silver, violet and green;
Ringing, rising, then falling on
The ground,
Set to weaving shadow-sounds
With the dark threads of sleep.
Like liquid gems pouring to a measure
Of perfume,
With shades of lavender tunes;
A dream-music of soundless sounds.
More than silence and sleep,
This bell melody
Of light, of air, and leaf,
Played by moon-bedimmed stars;
The cloud-ships afire in the west;
Crimson, the surface of the lake;
The sun-brush paints the forest-canvas
In gold and green and red;
While the breeze-child turns the leaves of the trees
In the book of sunset-images for twilight dreams.
What dream-peacock, this moon.
With voice of silence,
Bejeweled with the golden stars,
With its spread fan, the tree —
What dance, this?
What rain-cloud hath it seen
In the sky of night's intangibility?
Ah, sleep-ravished eyes
Dream of a paradise,
That close to our heart lies,
Sleep-ravished eyes.
Peace and pleasure,
Their music and measure;
Love and love's treasure,
Oh, peace in pleasure!
Eyes dark and deep;
All dreams they keep
In their labyrinths of sleep;
Oh, eyes dark, deep!