Dreams and Days | Page 2

merit in a voice that's truthful:?Yours is not honey-sweet nor youthful,?But querulously fit.?And if we cannot sing, we'll say?Something to the purpose, jay!
THE STAR TO ITS LIGHT
"Go," said the star to its light:?"Follow your fathomless flight!?Into the dreams of space?Carry the joy of my face.?Go," said the star to its light:?"Tell me the tale of your flight."
As the mandate rang?The heavens through,?Quick the ray sprang:?Unheard it flew,?Sped by the touch of an unseen spur.?It crumbled the dusk of the deep?That folds the worlds in sleep,?And shot through night with noiseless stir.
Then came the day;?And all that swift array?Of diamond-sparkles died.?And lo! the far star cried:?"My light has lost its way!"?Ages on ages passed:?The light returned, at last.
"What have you seen,?What have you heard--?O ray serene,?O flame-winged bird?I loosed on endless air??Why do you look so faint and white?"--?Said the star to its light.
"O star," said the tremulous ray,?"Grief and struggle I found.?Horror impeded my way.?Many a star and sun?I passed and touched, on my round.?Many a life undone?I lit with a tender gleam:?I shone in the lover's eyes,?And soothed the maiden's dream.?But alas for the stifling mist of lies!?Alas, for the wrath of the battle-field?Where my glance was mixed with blood!?And woe for the hearts by hate congealed,?And the crime that rolls like a flood!?Too vast is the world for me;?Too vast for the sparkling dew?Of a force like yours to renew.?Hopeless the world's immensity!?The suns go on without end:?The universe holds no friend:?And so I come back to you."
"Go," said the star to its light:?"You have not told me aright.?This you have taught: I am one?In a million of million others--?Stars, or planets, or men;--?And all of these are my brothers.?Carry that message, and then?My guerdon of praise you have won!?Say that I serve in my place:?Say I will hide my own face?Ere the sorrows of others I shun.?So, then, my trust you'll requite.?Go!"--said the star to its light.
"THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES"
The sunshine of thine eyes,?(O still, celestial beam!)?Whatever it touches it fills?With the life of its lambent gleam.
The sunshine of thine eyes,?O let it fall on me!?Though I be but a mote of the air,?I could turn to gold for thee!
JESSAMINE
Here stands the great tree still, with broad bent head;?Its wide arms grown aweary, yet outspread?With their old blessing. But wan memory weaves?Strange garlands, now, amongst the darkening leaves.?And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Beneath these glimmering arches Jessamine?Walked with her lover long ago; and in?The leaf-dimmed light he questioned, and she spoke;?Then on them both, supreme, love's radiance broke.?And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Sweet Jessamine we called her; for she shone?Like blossoms that in sun and shade have grown,?Gathering from each alike a perfect white,?Whose rich bloom breaks opaque through darkest night.?And the moon hangs low in the elm.
For this her sweetness Walt, her lover, sought?To win her; wooed her here, his heart o'er fraught?With fragrance of her being; and gained his plea.?So "We will wed," they said, "beneath this tree."
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Yet dreams of conquering greater prize for her?Roused his wild spirit with a glittering spur.?Eager for wealth, far, far from home he sailed;?And life paused;--while she watched joy vanish, veiled.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Ah, better at the elm-tree's sunbrowned feet?If he had been content to let life fleet?Its wonted way!--lord of his little farm,?In zest of joys or cares unmixed with harm.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
For, as against a snarling sea one steers,?He battled vainly with the surging years;?While ever Jessamine must watch and pine,?Her vision bounded by the bleak sea-line.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Then silence fell; and all the neighbors said?That Walt had married, faithless, or was dead:?Unmoved in constancy, her tryst she kept,?Each night beneath the tree, ere sorrow slept.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
So, circling years went by, till in her face?Slow melancholy wrought a mingled grace,?Of early joy with suffering's hard alloy--?Refined and rare, no doom could e'er destroy.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Sometimes at twilight, when sweet Jessamine?Slow-footed, weary-eyed, passed by to win?The elm, we smiled for pity of her, and mused?On love that so could live, with love refused.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
And none could hope for her. But she had grown?Too high in love, for hope. She bloomed alone,?Aloft in proud devotion; and secure?Against despair; so sweet her faith, so sure.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Her wandering lover knew not well her soul.?Discouraged, on disaster's changing shoal?Stranding, he waited; starved on selfish pride,?Long years; nor would obey love's homeward tide.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
But, bitterly repenting of his sin,?Deeper at last he learned to look within?Sweet Jessamine's true heart--when the past, dead,?Mocked him with wasted years forever fled.
And