The Garden of Dreams

With the dignity of whilom gladness!
They – unto whose hearts thou once confessed thee
Of thy dreams – now know thee not! and sadness
Sits beside thee where forgot dost rest thee.

THE HAUNTED WOODLAND

Here in the golden darkness
And green night of the woods,
A flitting form I follow,
A shadow that eludes —
Or is it but the phantom
Of former forest moods?

The phantom of some fancy
I knew when I was young,
And in my dreaming boyhood,
The wildwood flow'rs among,
Young face to face with Faery
Spoke in no unknown tongue.

Blue were her eyes, and golden
The nimbus of her hair;
And crimson as a flower
Her mouth that kissed me there;
That kissed and bade me follow,
And smiled away my care.

A magic and a marvel
Lived in her word and look,
As down among the blossoms
She sate me by the brook,
And read me wonder-legends
In Nature's Story Book.

Loved fairy-tales forgotten,
She never reads again,
Of beautiful enchantments
That haunt the sun and rain,
And, in the wind and water,
Chant a mysterious strain.

And so I search the forest,
Wherein my spirit feels,
In tree or stream or flower
Herself she still conceals —
But now she flies who followed,
Whom Earth no more reveals.

DISCOVERY

What is it now that I shall seek,
Where woods dip downward, in the hills? —
A mossy nook, a ferny creek,
And May among the daffodils.

Or in the valley's vistaed glow,
Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines,
Shall I behold her coming slow,
Sweet May, among the columbines?

With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes,
Big eyes, the homes of happiness,
To meet me with the old surprise,
Her hoiden hair all bonnetless.

Who waits for me, where, note for note,
The birds make glad the forest-trees?
A dogwood blossom at her throat,
My May among the anemones.

As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,
And dewdrops drink the moonlight's gleams,
My soul shall kiss her lips' perfumes,
And drink the magic of her dreams.

COMRADERY

With eyes hand-arched he looks into
The morning's face, then turns away
With schoolboy feet, all wet with dew,
Out for a holiday.

The hill brook sings, incessant stars,
Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast;
And where he wades its water-bars
Its song is happiest.

A comrade of the chinquapin,
He looks into its knotted eyes
And sees its heart; and, deep within,
Its soul that makes him wise.

The wood-thrush knows and follows him,
Who whistles up the birds and bees;
And 'round him all the perfumes swim
Of woodland loam and trees.

Where'er he pass the supple springs'
Foam-people sing the flowers awake;