Works

Be gentle, O hands of a child;
Be true: like a shadowy sea
In the starry darkness of night
Are your eyes to me.

But words are shallow, and soon
Dreams fade that the heart once knew;...

Away o'er the hills in the valley green
Away from the noise of the busy town;
I dream sweet dreams of the olden days
Of you in your beautiful wedding gown.

I dream that you come and sit by me...

I gave my life to another lover,
I gave my love, and all, and all
But over a dream the past will hover,
Out of a dream the past will call.

I tear myself from sleep with a shiver...

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,...

Men die...
Dreams only change their houses.
They cannot be lined up against a wall
And quietly buried under ground,
And no more heard of...
However deep the pit and heaped the clay -...

Here we are all, by day; by night we're hurl'd
By dreams, each one into a several world.

Thank God for dreams! I, desolate and lone,
In the dark curtained night, did seem to be
The centre where all golden sun-rays shone,
And, sitting there, held converse sweet with thee....

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Beauties of an older day,
Where, crowned with roses, stands the DAWN,
Striking her seven-stringed barbiton
Of flame, whose chords give being to...

Let me not mar that perfect dream
By an auroral stain,
But so adjust my daily night
That it will come again.

I.

The sweetest dreams, it seems to me, that we can ever know,
Are those the fancy brings to us of days of long-ago,
When rainbow-tinted pictures all are like a mirage flung...

I love a woman tenderly,
But cannot know if she loves me.
I press her hand, her lips I kiss,
But still love's full assurance miss.
Our waking life for ever seems
Cleft by a veil of doubt and dreams....

I just think that dreams are best,
Just to sit and fancy things;
Give your gold no acid test,
Try not how your silver rings;
Fancy women pure and good,
Fancy men upright and true:...

When through the heat of some long afternoon
In blazing August, on the grass I lie,
And watch the white clouds move across the sky,
On whose azure is faintly etched the moon,...

I know not why I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood;
I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.
...

My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
An endless tapestry the past has woven drapes
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.
...

I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.
...

I plucked a snow-drop in the spring,
And in my hand too closely pressed;
The warmth had hurt the tender thing,
I grieved to see it withering.
I gave my love a poppy red,...

Sunlight, moonlight,
Twilight, starlight -
Gloaming at the close of day,
And an owl calling,
Cool dews falling
In a wood of oak and may.

Lantern-light, taper-light,
Torchlight, no-light:...

Cam'st thou not nigh to me
In that one glimpse of thee
When thy lips, tremblingly,
Said: "My Beloved."
'Twas but a moment's space,
And in that crowded place
I dared not scan thy face...

Long years ago, within a distant clime,
Ere Love had touched me with his wand sublime,
I dreamed of one to make my life's calm May
The panting passion of a summer's day....