The Dreamers | Page 2

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 word unto my mother to bid her think o' me
Only as a little lad
playing at her knee.
A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again
Two laughing lads
in Springtime a-racing down the glen.
A word unto my true love--a single word--to pray
If one day I cross
her path to turn her eyes away.
MONSEIGNEUR PLAYS
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--
Within her gilded chair the
Queen
Listens, her rustling maids between;
A very tulip-garden
stirred
To hear the fluting of a bird;
Faint sunlight through the
casement falls
On cupids painted on the walls
At play with doves.
Precisely set
Awaits the slender legged spinet
Expectant of its
happy lot,
The while the player stays to twist
The cobweb ruffle
from his wrist.
A pause, and then--(Ah, whisper not)
Monseigneur
plays his new gavotte.
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--
Hark, 'tis the faintest dawn of
Spring,
So still the dew drops whispering
Is loud upon the violets;

Here in this garden of Pierrettes'
Where Pierrot waits, ah, hasten
Sweet,
And hear; on dainty, tripping feet
She comes--the little, glad
coquette.
"Ah thou, Pierrot?" "Ah thou, Pierrette?"
A kiss, nay,
hear--a bird wakes, then
A silence--and they kiss again,
"Ah,
Mesdames, have you quite forgot--"
(So laughs his music.) "Love's
first kiss?
Let this note lead you then, and this
Back to that fragrant
garden-spot."
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte.
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--
Ah, hear--in that last note they go
The little lovers laughing so;


Kissing their finger-tips, they dance
From out this gilded room of
France.
Adieu! Monseigneur rises now
Ready for compliment and
bow,
Playing about his mouth the while
Its cynical, accustomed
smile,
Protests and, hand on heart, avers
The patience of his
listeners.
"A masterpiece? Ah, surely not."
A grey-eyed maid of
honour slips
A long stemmed rose across her lips
And drops it; does
he guess her thought?
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte.
UNBELIEF
Your chosen grasp the torch of faith--the key
Of very certainty is
theirs to hold.
They read Your word in messages of gold.
Lord,
what of us who have no light to see
And in the darkness doubt, whose
hands may be
Broken upon the door, who find but cold
Ashes of
words where others see enscrolled,
The glorious promise of Life's
victory.
Oh, well for those to whom You gave the light
(The light we may not
see by) whose award
Is that sure key--that message luminous,
Yet
we, your people stumbling in the night,
Doubting and dumb and
disbelieving--Lord,
Is there no word for us--no word for us?
THE SILENT ONE
The moon to-night is like the sun
Through blossomed branches seen;

Come out with me, dear silent one,
And trip it on the green.
"Nay, Lad, go you within its light,
Nor stay to urge me so--
'Twas
on another moonlit night
My heart broke long ago."
Oh loud and high the pipers play
To speed the dancers on;
Come
out and be as glad as they,
Oh, little Silent one.
"Nay, Lad, where all your mates are met
Go you the selfsame way,

Another dance I would forget
Wherein I too was gay."

But here you sit long day by day
With those whose joys are done;

What mates these townfolk old and grey
For you dear Silent one.
"Nay, Lad, they're done with joys and fears.
Rare comrades should
we prove,
For they are very old with years
And I am old with love."
THE ROSE
I took the love you gave, Ah, carelessly,
Counting it only as a rose to
wear
A little moment on my heart no more,
So many roses had I
worn before,
So lightly that I scarce believed them there.
But, Lo! this rose between the dusk and dawn
Hath turned to very
flame upon my breast,
A flame that burns the day-long and the night,

A flame of very anguish and delight
That not for any moment
yields me rest.
And I am troubled with a strange, new fear,
How would it be if even
to your door
I came to cry your pitying one day,
And you should
lightly laugh and lightly say,
"That was a rose I gave you--nothing
more."
THE SONG OF THE YOUNG PAGE
All that I know of love I see
In eyes that never look at me;
All that I
know of love I guess
But from another's happiness.
A beggar at the window I,
Who, famished, looks on revelry;
A
slave who lifts his torch to guide
The happy bridegroom to his bride.
My granddam told me once of one
Whom all her village spat upon,

Seeing the church from out its breast
Had cast