 | [Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary |  |
[Give me to see, though only in a dream]
Give me to see, though only in a dream,
Though only in an unsubstantial dream,
The dear old cradle lined with leaves of moss,
And daily changed from cradle into cross,
What time athwart its dull brown wood, a beam
Slid from the gold deeps of the sunset shore,
Making the blur of twilight white and fair,
Like lilies quivering in the summer air;
And my low pillow like a rose full-blown.
Oh, give mine eyes to see once more, once more.
My longing eyes to see this one time more,
The shadows trembling with the wings of bats,
And dandelions dragging to the door,
And speckling all the grass about the door,
With the thick spreading of their starry mats.
Though only in an unsubstantial dream,
The dear old cradle lined with leaves of moss,
And daily changed from cradle into cross,
What time athwart its dull brown wood, a beam
Slid from the gold deeps of the sunset shore,
Making the blur of twilight white and fair,
Like lilies quivering in the summer air;
And my low pillow like a rose full-blown.
Oh, give mine eyes to see once more, once more.
My longing eyes to see this one time more,
The shadows trembling with the wings of bats,
And dandelions dragging to the door,
And speckling all the grass about the door,
With the thick spreading of their starry mats.
Give me to see, I pray and can but pray,
Oh, give me but to see to-day, to-day,
The little brown-walled house where I was born;
The gray old barn, the cattle-shed close by,
The well-sweep, with its angle sharp and high;
The flax field, like a patch of fallen sky;
The millet harvest, colored like the corn,
Like to the ripe ears of the new husked corn.
Oh, give me but to see to-day, to-day,
The little brown-walled house where I was born;
The gray old barn, the cattle-shed close by,
The well-sweep, with its angle sharp and high;
The flax field, like a patch of fallen sky;
The millet harvest, colored like the corn,
Like to the ripe ears of the new husked corn.
And give mine eyes to see among the rest
This rustic picture, in among the rest,
For there and only there it doth belong,
I, at fourteen, and in my Sunday best,
Reading with voice unsteady my first song,
The rugged verses of my first rude song.
This rustic picture, in among the rest,
For there and only there it doth belong,
I, at fourteen, and in my Sunday best,
Reading with voice unsteady my first song,
The rugged verses of my first rude song.
| [Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary | |