From the Land of Dreams :: :: University of Virginia Library

O hosts without a name! O unappeasable powers!
O wandering forms of Love, and Beauty, and Heart's-ease!
Why is it ye disturb with dreams men's fading hours?
Why is it still the promise, never the gift, of peace?

Your music, your wild singing, came to me out of the air,
Alluring, promising, in one mysterious word
Of the great Voice that thrilled old Silence in her lair,
Ere the stars for their first flight their mighty wings had stirred:

One summons from that realm where things unuttered sleep
With the unawakened Beauty hidden from desire,
Challenging, maddening me, mocking all things that weep,
Till my spirit was a wild wind, my heart a wind-blown fire.

My heart was an eddying flame, my spirit a rushing wind,
Fierce joy, fierce pain, seized me in that mysterious word;
My heart consumed my life, my spirit left me lonely,
Following your sweet alluring song—left me behind,
Knowing not where I was, or went; believing only
The vision that I saw, the music that I heard.

The sunset's dying glow was paling in the sky,
And twilight, from the visionary land where silence dwells,
Stole o'er the gleaming fields, shedding tranquillity
Like dew, o'er bawn and pasture, o'er woods and ferny dells;
But lingering day's farewell grew sad with all farewells.

Following the sun's footsteps through the heavens, where yet no star
Heralded Night, that now with all her hosts drew nigh,
Only the Planet of Love shone in the delicate sky,
Only the Planet of Love looked sad from heaven on me;
While through the deepening gloam, over the hills afar,
Throbbed a faint orange flame. The ancient mystery
Of day's decline entranced the earth. Light's quivering wand
Drew from the fields of air their tenderest newborn hues,
And made the earth divine.

There in the hallowing gleam,
Beside her cottage door I saw my Mother stand,
At peace with age. Numb woe for all things I must lose,
Following the airy music, following the flying dream,
Troubled my heart. The cows trooped to the milking shed,
Lowing; the grave poplars, and the sallies by the stream,
Felt the sad spell of the sky; but I was as one dead,
And all familiar things I loved phantoms did seem.

The old place knew me no more—the solitary ghost
Haunting the fields awhile. A robin from a tree
Warbled his last sweet rapturous litany. The host
Of airy singers calling troubled not him, I knew;
But only me. And there, in the sweet twilight hour,
My Love was waiting me; whom those wild voices drew
Away from home and her! And now their magic power
Made me but as a billow when the moon compels;

My heart grew drowsy—closed, when closed each innocent flower,
My chilling heart shut close. They called—called through Love's hour—
They called, and I must follow, lured by their wildering spells;
And the farewell of day shone sad with all fare-wells.