University of Virginia Library


197

[XXVII
I dreamed. Aye, it was very dark]

I dreamed. Aye, it was very dark
And yet the cliffs were red.
I sat me down hard by a watershed
And watched as in the current sped
Spark after spark
Down the dark.
The pine-trees with their branches hummed
A warm, mid-summer air.
That night none of the nightingales were there.
A cricket, in the grasses rare,
Close by, benumbed,
Sometimes thrummed.
I leaned over the water's flight,
And where the foam threads whirred,
Out of the cataract I freshly heard
The voice of an alighting bird;
“Come down the night
To the light.”
[1903]