Dreams and Days | Page 2

tangle
Of memories grave or joyous:
Things to weep
or laugh at;
Love that lived at a hint, or
Days so sweet, they'd cloy

us;
Nights I have spent with friends;--
Glistening groves of winter,

And the sound of vanished feet
That walked by the ripening wheat;

With other things.... Not the half that
Your cry familiar blends

Can I name, for it is mostly
Very ghostly;--
Such mixed-up things
your voice recalls,
With its peculiar quirks and falls.
Possibly, then, your meaning, plain,
Is that your harsh and broken
strain
Tallies best with a world of pain.
Well, I'll admit
There's 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,