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

Lone is my waiting here under the tree,
Under our tree of the woods, where I wait and wait;
Why loiter those white little feet that would bring you to me,
Where are the warm sweet arms that are leaving me desolate,
Oona, asthore mochree?

II

Oona, the woods are sighing—they sigh and say:
The wind of summer will pass like a lover's sigh,
And love's glad hour as lightly passes away;
Come to me then, ere my longing hope of despair shall die,
Oona, asthore mochree!

A SONG OF THE SPRING

I

The leaves are springing,
The woodlands ringing
With birds' love-words in Love's golden tongue;

The blue air winging,
Glad larks are singing,
For Spring is come, and my heart is young.

II

Oh! the mirth
Of the Spring's new birth,
The joy that never was told or sung,
As round the girth
Of the wakening earth
She flies, and laughing makes all things young!

A COMPLAINT

I

Like a stone on my heart grief's come to lie,
Sadly as phantoms my days go by,
Though shines the sun at our cottage door.
He gilds the corn with the year's first gold,
While through my veins the sick blood creeps cold:
My Heart's Beloved comes never more!

II

Grief my handmaid, I sit and spin,
With grief my comrade go out and in,
I lay the table, I sweep the floor;
But all I do is a senseless dream,
And here a stranger myself I seem;
For my Heart's Beloved comes never more!

III

Grief lies awake in my bed with me,
Like dim corpse-candles the stars I see,
When the moon shines in, as she did before;
O mother, mother! her face I dread,
'Tis like the face on my own death-bed,
Since my Heart's Beloved comes never more.

THE SALLY-TREE

I

There's a sally standing by the river,
Ah Mary! why is it standing there?
To make a garland for my hair,
For my lover is gone from me for ever;
And that's why it stands there!

II

There's a thrush that sits on that sally-tree,
Ah Mary! why is he sitting there?
He sings the song of my lonely care
For the lover that cares no more for me;
And that's why he sits there!

III

The wind comes keening in that sally-tree,
Ah Mary! why is it keening there?
It keenes the keene of my heart's despair,
For the lover that's gone, that's gone from me;
And that's why it's keening there!

DREAMS

How oft in this mad world we lose our way,
Dazed by the glamour of Love's romantic moon,
Or young Ambition's meteors, fading soon,
In the fierce light of disenchanting day!
And yet by dreams we live, our house of clay

Haunted by dead men's dreams. Dreamers have hewn
Columns for Wisdom's temple, where each June
Brings dewy flowers to crown her seers grown grey.
The gods reveal themselves in dreams. In dreams
We feel the unseen Spirit whose power impels
The labouring earth. To dream is still to hope,
Hope leads our upward feet. Our dreams are spells
To wake the god within. Dreaming we grope
After the splendour that before us gleams.