The Garden of Dreams

And sappy lips of bark-clad things
Laugh ripe each fruited brake.

His touch is a companionship;
His word, an old authority:
He comes, a lyric at his lip,
Unstudied Poesy.

OCCULT

Unto the soul's companionship
Of things that only seem to be,
Earth points with magic fingertip
And bids thee see
How Fancy keeps thee company.

For oft at dawn hast not beheld
A spirit of prismatic hue
Blow wide the buds, which night has swelled?
And stain them through
With heav'n's ethereal gold and blue?

While at her side another went
With gleams of enigmatic white?
A spirit who distributes scent,
To vale and height,
In footsteps of the rosy light?

And oft at dusk hast thou not seen
The star-fays bring their caravans
Of dew, and glitter all the green,
Night's shadow tans,
From many starbeam sprinkling-cans?

Nor watched with these the elfins go
Who tune faint instruments? whose sound
Is that moon-music insects blow
When all the ground
Sleeps, and the night is hushed around?

WOOD-WORDS

I

The spirits of the forest,
That to the winds give voice —
I lie the livelong April day
And wonder what it is they say
That makes the leaves rejoice.

The spirits of the forest,
That breathe in bud and bloom —
I walk within the black-haw brake
And wonder how it is they make
The bubbles of perfume.

The spirits of the forest,
That live in every spring —
I lean above the brook's bright blue
And wonder what it is they do
That makes the water sing.

The spirits of the forest.
That haunt the sun's green glow —
Down fungus ways of fern I steal
And wonder what they can conceal,
In dews, that twinkles so.

The spirits of the forest,
They hold me, heart and hand —
And, oh! the bird they send by light,
The jack-o'-lantern gleam by night,
To guide to Fairyland!

II

The time when dog-tooth violets
Hold up inverted horns of gold, —
The elvish cups that Spring upsets
With dripping feet, when April wets
The sun-and-shadow-marbled wold, —

Is come. And by each leafing way
The sorrel drops pale blots of pink;
And, like an angled star a fay
Sets on her forehead's pallid day,
The blossoms of the trillium wink.

Within the vale, by rock and stream, —
A fragile, fairy porcelain, —
Blue as a baby's eyes a-dream,
The bluets blow; and gleam in gleam
The sun-shot dog-woods flash with rain.

It is the time to cast off care;
To make glad intimates of these: —
The frank-faced sunbeam laughing there;
The great-heart wind, that bids us share
The optimism of the trees.