Blooms of the Berry

The moon is still a crescent, love;
And here with thee 'tis pleasant, love,
To sit and dream in its thin gleam,
And list thy sighs liquescent, love:
To see thy eyes and fondle thy dark tresses,
Set on warm lips imperishable kisses.

The sudden-glaring fire-flies
Swim o'er the hollow gyre-wise,
And spurt and shine like jostled wine
At lips on which desire lies:
Or like the out-flashed hair of elf or fairy
In rapid morrice whirling feat and airy.

Up, – all the blue West sundering, —
A creamy cloud comes blundering
O'er star and steep, and opening deep
Grows gold with silent thundering:
Gold flooding crystal crags immeasurable,
Lost Avalons of old Romance and Fable.

The bee dreams in the cherry bloom
That sways above the berry bloom;
The katydid grates where she's hid
In leafy deeps of dreary gloom:
The forming dew is globing on the grasses,
Like rich spilled gems of some dark queen that passes.

The mere brief gusts are wrinkling;
A thousand ripples twinkling
Have caught the stars on polished spars
Their rustling ridges sprinkling:
And all the shadow lurking in its bosom
Is touched and bursten into golden blossom.

Stoop! and my being flatter, love;
With sudden starlight scatter, love,
From the starry grace of thy rare face,
Whose might can make or shatter, love!
Come, raiment love in love's own radiant garments.
And kindle all my soul to rapturous torments!

Bow all thy beauty to me, love,
Lips, eyes, and hair to woo me, love,
As bows and blows some satin rose
Snow-soft and tame, that knew thee, love.
Unto the common grass, that worshiping cowers,
Dowering its love with all her musk of flowers.

THE DREAM

My dream was such:
It seemed the afternoon
Of some deep tropic day, and yet a moon
Stood round and full with largeness of white gleams
High in a Heaven that knew not a sun's beams;
A vast, still Heaven of unremembered dreams.
Long, lawny lengths of perishable cloud
Hung in a West o'er rolling forests bowed;
Clouds raining colors, gold and violet
That, opening, seemed from hidden worlds to let
Down hints of mystic beauty and old charms
Wrought of frail creatures fair with silvery forms.
And all about me fruited orchards grew
Of quince and peach and dusty plums of blue;
Wan apricots and apples red with fire,
Kissed into ripeness by some sun's desire,
And big with juice; and on far, fading hills,
Down which it seemed a hundred torrent rills
Flashed leaping silver, vines and vines and vines
Of purple vintage swollen with cool wines;
Pale pleasant wines and fragrant as the June,
Their delicate life robbed from the foam-fair moon.
And from the clouds o'er this sweet world there dripp'd
An odorous music strange and feverish lipped,
That swung and swooned and panted in mad sighs,
Invoking at each wave sad rapturous eyes
Of limpid, willowy beings fair as night,
Decked spangly with crisp flower-like stars of white;
Dim honeyed booming of the boisterous bee
In purple myriads of faint fleurs-de-lis;
Of surf far-foaming on forgotten strands
Of immemorial seas in fairy lands
Of melting passion, who, with crimson lips
Of many shells laid to each swell that dips,
Sigh secret hope of unrequited love
In murmurous language to wan winds above.

HAWKING

I

I see them still, when poring o'er
Old volumes of romantic lore,
Ride forth to hawk in days of yore,
By woods and promontories;
Knights in gold lace, plumes and gems,
Maidens crowned with anadems, —
Whose falcons on round wrists of milk