The Dreamers

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Title: The Dreamers
And Other Poems
Author: Theodosia Garrison
Release Date: January 15, 2007 [EBook #20373]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREAMERS ***
Produced by Jeffrey Johnson and the Online Distributed?Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was?produced from images generously made available by The?Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
THE DREAMERS?AND OTHER POEMS
BY
THEODOSIA GARRISON
NEW YORK?GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917,?BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
TO
F. J. F.
_September_, 1917
For the privilege of reprinting the poems included in this volume the author thanks the Editors of Scribner's, Harper's Magazine, Harper's Bazar, McClure's, Collier's Weekly, The Delineator, The Designer, Ainslee's, Everybody's, The Smart Set, The Cosmopolitan, Lippincott's, Munsey's, The Rosary, The Pictorial Review, The Bookman, and the Newark Sunday Call.
CONTENTS
THE DREAMERS
THREE SONGS IN A GARDEN
THE RETURN
BLACK SHEEP
MONSEIGNEUR PLAYS
UNBELIEF
THE SILENT ONE
THE ROSE
THE SONG OF THE YOUNG PAGE
THE NEW SPRING
THE BURDEN
THE BRIDE
THE SEER OF HEARTS
THE UNSEEN MIRACLE
THE APRIL BOUGHS
TRANSIENTS
THE MOTHER
WHEN PIERROT PASSES
THE POET
MAGDALEN
A SALEM MOTHER
THE DAYS
THE CALL
THE PARASITE
YOUTH
THE EMPTY HOUSE
THE BROKEN LUTE
ORCHARDS
TWILIGHT
A LOVE SONG
OLD BOATS
BEAUTY
A SONG
MOTHERS OF MEN
LOVELACE GROWN OLD
SHADE
THE VAGABOND
DISTANCE
THE GYPSYING
GOOD-BYE, PIERETTE
THE AWAKENING
THE WEDDING GOWN
THE DISCIPLES
THE UNKNOWING
HEART OF A HUNDRED SORROWS
THE RETURNING
THE INLANDER
AD FINEM
A SONG OF HELOISE
THE RETURN
THE POPLARS
THE LITTLE JOYS
SONGS OF HIMSELF
HIMSELF
THE FAIR
THE DANCING DAYS
SHEILA
THE GRIEF
THE INTRODUCTION
THE STAY-AT-HOME
THE DREAMERS
The gypsies passed her little gate--?She stopped her wheel to see,--?A brown-faced pair who walked the road,?Free as the wind is free;?And suddenly her tidy room?A prison seemed to be.
Her shining plates against the walls,?Her sunlit, sanded floor,?The brass-bound wedding chest that held?Her linen's snowy store,?The very wheel whose humming died,--?Seemed only chains she bore.
She watched the foot-free gypsies pass;?She never knew or guessed?The wistful dream that drew them close--?The longing in each breast?Some day to know a home like hers,?Wherein their hearts might rest.
THREE SONGS IN A GARDEN
I
White rose-leaves in my hands,?I toss you all away;?The winds shall blow you through the world?To seek my wedding day.?Or East you go, or West you go?And fall on land or sea,?Find the one that I love best?And bring him here to me.?And if he finds me spinning?'Tis short I'll break my thread;?And if he finds me dancing?I'll dance with him instead;?If he finds me at the Mass--?(Ah, let this not be,?Lest I forget my sweetest saint?The while he kneels by me!)
II
My lilies are like nuns in white?That guard me well all day,?But the red, red rose that near them grows?Is wiser far than they.?Oh, red rose, wise rose,?Keep my secret well;?I kiss you twice, I kiss you thrice?To pray you not to tell.?My lilies sleep beneath the moon,?But wide awake are you,?And you have heard a certain word?And seen a dream come true.?Oh, red rose, wise rose,?Silence for my sake,?Nor drop to-night a petal light?Lest my white lilies wake.
III
Will the garden never forget?That it whispers over and over,?"Where is your lover, Nanette??Where is your lover--your lover?"?Oh, roses I helped to grow,?Oh, lily and mignonette,?Must you always question me so,?"Where is your lover, Nanette?"?Since you looked on my joy one day,?Is my grief then a lesser thing??Have you only this to say?When I pray you for comforting??Now that I walk alone?Here where our hands were met,?Must you whisper me every one,?"Where is your lover, Nanette?"
I have mourned with you year and year,?When the Autumn has left you bare,?And now that my heart is sere?Does not one of your roses care??Oh, help me forget--forget,?Nor question over and over,?"Where is your lover, Nanette??Where is your lover--your lover?"
THE RETURN
I lost Young Love so long ago?I had forgot him quite,?Until a little lass and lad?Went by my door to-night.
Ah, hand in hand, but not alone,?They passed my open door,?For with them walked that other one?Who paused here Mays before.
And I, who had forgotten long,?Knew suddenly the grace?Of one who in an empty land?Beholds a kinsman's face.
Oh, Young Love, gone these many years,?'Twas you came back to-night,?And laid your hand on my two eyes?That they might see aright,
And took my listless hand in yours?(Your hands without a stain),?And touched me on my tired heart?That it might beat again.
BLACK SHEEP
_"Black Sheep, Black Sheep,_
_Have you any wool?"_?_"That I have, my Master,_
_Three bags full."_
One is for the mother who prays for me at night--?A gift of broken promises to count by candle-light.
One is for the tried friend who raised me when I fell-- A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path to hell.
And one is for the true love--the heaviest of all--?That holds the pieces of a faith a careless hand let fall.
_Black Sheep, Black Sheep,_
_Have you ought to say?_?_A word to each, my Master,_
_Ere I go my way._
A