Days and Dreams Poems

Excerpt

He waits musing.

Herein the dearness of her is:
The thirty perfect days of June
Made one, in beauty and in bliss
Were not more white to have to kiss,
To love not more in tune.
And oft I think she is too true,
Too innocent for our day;
For in her eyes her soul looks new—
Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blue
Are not more soft than they.
So good, so kind is she to me,
In darling ways and happy words,
Sometimes my heart fears she may be
Too much with God and secretly
Sweet sister to the birds.

2.

Becoming impatient.

The owls are quavering, two, now three,
And all the green is graying;
The owls our trysting dials be—
There is no time for staying.
I wait you where this buckeye throws
Its tumbled shadow over
Wood-violet and the bramble-rose,
Long lady-fern and clover.
Spice-seeded sassafras weighs deep
Rough rail and broken paling,
Where all day long the lizards sleep
Like lichen on the railing.
Behind you you will feel the moon's
Gold stealing like young laughter;
And mists—gray ghosts of picaroons—
Its phantom treasure after.
And here together, youth and youth,
Love will be doubly able;
Each be to each as true as truth,
And dear as fairy fable.
The owls are calling and the maize
With fallen dew is dripping—
Ah, girlhood, through the dewy haze
Come like a moonbeam slipping.

3.

He hums.

There is a fading inward of the day,
And all the pansy sunset hugs one star;
To eastward dwindling all the land is gray,
While barley meadows westward smoulder far.
Now to your glass will you pass
For the last time?
Pass,
Humming that ballad we know?—
Here while I wait it is late
And is past time—
Late,
And love's hours they go, they go.
There is a drawing downward of the night;
The wedded Heaven wends married to the Moon;
Above, the heights hang golden in her light,
Below, the woods bathe dewy in the June.
There through the dew is it you
Coming lawny?
You,
Or a moth in the vines?
You!—at your throat I may note
Twinkling tawny,
Note,
A glow-worm, your brooch that shines.

4.

She speaks.

How many smiles in the asking?—
Herein I can not deceive you;
My "yes" in a "no" was a-masking,
Nor thought, dear, once to grieve you.
I hid. The humming-bird happiness here
Danced up i' the blood ... but what are words
When the speech of two souls all truth affords?
Affirmative, negative what in love's ear?—
I wished to say "yes" and somehow said "no";
The woman within me knew you would know,
For it held you six times dear.

He speaks.

So many hopes in a wooing!—
Therein you could not deceive me;
The heart was here and the hope pursuing,
Knew that you loved, believe me.—
Bunched bells o' the blush pomegranate—to fix
At your throat; three drops of fire they are;
And the maiden moon and the maiden star
Sink silvery over yon meadow ricks.
Will you look?—till I hug your head back, so—
For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no,"—
And my kisses, sweet, are six.

5.

She speaks.

Could I recall every joy that befell me
There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,
These were no joys to this....