More Songs From Vagabondia | Page 9

on my cheek.
And then I slept and dreamed and
marked no change;
The night went on with me into my dream.
This
only I remember, that I cried:
"O Sappho! ere I leave this paradise,

Sing me one song of those lost books of yours
For which we poets
still go sorrowing;
That when I meet my fellows on the earth
I may
rejoice them more than many pearls;"
And she, the sweetly smiling,
answered me,
As one who dreams, "I have forgotten them."
NOCTURNE: IN PROVENCE.
The blue night, like an angel, came into the room,--
Came through the
open window from the silent sky
Down trellised stairs of moonlight
into the dear room
As if a whisper breathed of some divine one nigh.

The nightingales, like brooks of song in Paradise,
Gurgled their
serene rapture to the silent sky--
Like springs of laughter bubbling up
in Paradise,
The serene nightingales along the riverside
Purled low
in every tree their star-cool melodies
Of joy--in every tree along the
riverside.
Did the vain garments melt in music from your side?
Did you rise
from them as a lily flowers i' the air?
--But you were there before me
like the Night's own bride-- I dared not call you mine. So still and tall
you were,
I never dreamed that you were mine--I never dreamed
I
loved you--I forgot I loved you. You were air
And music, and the
shadows that you stood in, seemed
Like priests that keep their sombre
vigil round a shrine--
Like sombre priests that watch about a glorious
shrine.
And then you stepped into the moonlight and laid bare
The wonder of
your body to the night, and stood
With all the stars of heaven looking

at you there,
As simply as a saint might bare her soul to God--
As
simply as a saint might bathe in lakes of prayer--
Stood with the holy
moonlight falling on you there
Until I thought that in a glory unaware

I had seen a soul stand forth and bare itself to God--
A saintly soul
lay bare its innocence to God.
JUNE NIGHT IN WASHINGTON.
The scent of honeysuckle,
Drugging the twilight
With its sweet
opiate of lovers' dreams!
The last red glow of the setting sun
On the
red brick wall
Of the neighboring house,
And the scramble of red
roses over it!
Slowly, slowly
The night smokes up from the city to the stars,
The
faint foreshadowed stars;
The smouldering night
Breathes upward
like the breath
Of a woman asleep
With dim breast rising and
falling
And a smile of delicate dreams.
Softly, softly
The wind comes into the garden,
Like a lover that
fears lest he waken his love,
And his hands drip with the scent of the
roses
And his locks weep with the opiate odor of honeysuckle.

Sighing, sighing
As a lover that yearns for the lips of his love,
In a
torment of bliss,
In a passionate dreaming of bliss,
The wind in the
trees of the garden!
How intimate are the trees,--
Rustling like the secret darkness of the
soul!
How still is the starlight,--
Aloof in the placidity of dream!
Outside the garden
A group of negroes passing in the street
Sing
with ripe lush voices,
Sing with voices that swim
Like great slow
gliding fishes
Through the scent of the honeysuckle:
_My love's waitin',
Waitin' by the river,
Waitin' till I come along!


Wait there, child; I'm comin'.

Jay-bird tol' me,
Tol' me in the mornin',
Tol' me she'd be there
to-night.
Wait there, child; I'm comin'._
Waves of dream!
Spell of the summer night!
Will of the grass that
stirs in its sleep!
Desire of the honeysuckle!
And further away,

Like the plash of far-off waves in the fluid night,
The negroes,
singing:
_Whip-po'-will tol' me,
Tol' me in the evenin',
"Down by the bend
where the cat-tails grow."
Wait there, child; I'm comin'._
Lo, the moon,
Like a galleon sailing the night;
And the wash of the
moonlight over the roofs and the trees!
Oh, my bride,
Come down from yonder lattice where you bide
Like
a charmed princess in a Persian song!
I look up at your yellow
window-panes,
Set in the night with far-off wizardry.
Come down,
come down; the night is fain of you,
The garden waits your footstep
on its walks.
Lo, the moon,
Like a galleon sailing the night;
And the wash of the
moonlight over the red brick wall and the roses!
A gleam of lamplight through an open door!
A footfall like the wind's
upon the grass!
A rustle like the wind's among the leaves!...
Dim as
a dream of pale peach blooms of light,
Blue in the blue soft pallor of
the moon,
She comes between the trees as a faint tune
Falls from a
flute far off into the night....
So Death might come to one who knew
him Love.
A SONG FOR MARNA.
Dame of the night of hair
Like blue smoke blown!
World yet
undreamed-of there
Lurks to be known.
Dame of the dizzy eyes,
Lure of dim quests!
World of what

midnights lies
Under thy breasts!
Dame of the quench of love,
Give me to quaff!
There's all the
world's made of
Under thy laugh.
Dame of the dare of gods,
Let the sky lower!
Time, give the world
for odds,--
I choose this hour.
SEPTEMBER WOODLANDS.
This is not sadness in the wood;
The yellowbird
Flits