Dreams Dust | Page 8

men whose work compelled them there,
Their hearts were
stricken dead;
They heard the rope creak on the beam;
I thought I heard the
frightened ghost
Whimpering overhead.)
The mother by the gallows-tree,
The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree,

Lifted to Christ her broken heart
And called in agony.
Then Lord Christ bent to her and said:
"Be comforted, be comforted;

I know your grief; the whole world's woe
I bore upon my head."
"But O Lord Christ, you cannot know,
No one can know," she said,
"no one"--
(While the quivering corpse swayed in the wind)--
"Lord
Christ, no one can understand
Who never had a son!"
IN THE BAYOU
LAZY and slow, through the snags and trees
Move the sluggish
currents, half asleep;
Around and between the cypress knees,
Like

black, slow snakes the dark tides creep--
How deep is the bayou
beneath the trees?
"Knee-deep,
Knee-deep,
Knee-deep,
Knee-deep!"

Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot Lake
From his hiding-place in the
draggled brake.
What is the secret the slim reeds know
That makes them to shake and
to shiver so,
And the scared flags quiver from plume to foot?--
The
frogs pipe solemnly, deep and slow:
"Look under
the root!
Look under
the root!"

The hoarse frog croaks and the stark owl hoots
Of a mystery moored
in the cypress roots.
Was it love turned hate? Was it friend turned foe?
Only the frogs and
the gray owl know,
For the white moon shrouded her face in a mist

At the spurt of a pistol, red and bright--
At the sound of a shriek that
stabbed the night--
And the little reeds were frightened and whist;

But always the eddies whimper and choke,
And the frogs would tell if
they could, for they
croak:
"Deep, deep!
Death-deep!
Deep, deep!
Death-deep!"

And the dark tide slides and glisters and glides
Snakelike over the

secret it hides.
THE SAILOR'S WIFE SPEAKS
YE are dead, they say, but ye swore, ye swore,
Ye would come to me
back from the sea!
From out of the sea and the night, ye cried,
Nor
the crawling weed nor the dragging tide
Could hold ye fast from
me:--
Come, ah, come to me!
Three spells I have laid on the rising sun
And three on the waning
moon--
Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day
Ye must
loosen your bonds and away, away!
Ye must come where I wait ye,
soon--
Ah, soon! soon! soon!
Three times I have cast my words to the wind,
And thrice to the
climbing sea;
If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam
Ye must
drift again home, ye must drift again
home--
Wraith, ye are free, ye are free;
Ghost, ye are free, ye are free!
Are the coasts of death so fair, so fair?
But I wait ye here on the shore!

It is I that ye hear in the calling wind--
I have stared through the
dark till my soul is blind!
O lover of mine, ye swore,
Lover of mine,
ye swore!
HUNTED
Oh, why do they hunt so hard, so hard, who have
no need of food?
Do they hunt for sport, do they hunt for hate, do
they hunt for the lust of blood?
. . . . . .

If I were a god I would get me a spear, I would
get me horse and dog,
And merrily, merrily I would ride through
covert
and brake and bog,
With hound and horn and laughter loud, over the
hills and away--
For there is no sport like that of a god with a
man that stands at bay!
Ho! but the morning is fresh and fair, and oh!
but the sun is bright,
And yonder the quarry breaks from the brush
and
heads for the hills in flight;
A minute's law for the harried thing--then follow
him, follow him fast,
With the bellow of dogs and the beat of hoofs
and the mellow bugle's blast.
. . . . . .
Hillo! Halloo! they have marked a man! there is
sport in the world to-day--
And a clamor swells from the heart of the
wood that
tells of a soul at bay!
A DREAM CHILD
WHERE tides of tossed wistaria bloom
Foam up in