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Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Why ask when the night only knoweth?
The night -- and the angel of sleep!
But ever since then a music deep,
Like a stream thro' a shadow-land, floweth...

"O Songs!" I said:
"Stop sounding in my soul
Just for a little while and let me sleep,
Resting my head on the breast
Of Silence;" but the rhythmic roll
Of a thousand songs swept on and on,...

Those hearts of ours -- how strange! how strange!
How they yearn to ramble and love to range
Down through the vales of the years long gone,
Up through the future that fast rolls on.
...

I love my mother, the wildwood,
I sleep upon her breast;
A day or two of childhood,
And then I sink to rest.

I had once a lovely sister --
She was cradled by my side;...

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
A breaking heart in a broken breath,
A hopeless cry o'er her heart-hope's death!
Can words catch the chords of the winds that wail,
When love's last lily lies dead in the vale!...

Dark! Dark! Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead:
Thy Feast has fled;
My eyes are wet with tears unshed;
I bow my head;
Where the star-fringed shadows softly sway
I bend my knee,...

The priests stood waiting in the holy place,
Impatient of delay
(Isaiah had been read),
When sudden up the aisle there came a face
Like a lost sun's ray;
And the child was led...

Two lights on a lowly altar;
Two snowy cloths for a Feast;
Two vases of dying roses;
The morning comes from the east,
With a gleam for the folds of the vestments
And a grace for the face of the priest....

Young as the youngest who donned the Gray,
True as the truest that wore it,
Brave as the bravest he marched away,
(Hot tears on the cheeks of his mother lay)
Triumphant waved our flag one day --...

Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Sisters of Charity.



A shadow slept folded in vestments,
The dream of a smile on its face,
Dim, soft as the gleam after sunset...

Some find work where some find rest,
And so the weary world goes on:
I sometimes wonder which is best;
The answer comes when life is gone.

Some eyes sleep when some eyes wake,...

To the Children of Mary of the Cathedral of Mobile



In the mystical dim of the temple,
In the dream-haunted dim of the day,
The sunlight spoke soft to the shadows,...

The death of men is not the death
Of rights that urged them to the fray;
For men may yield
On battle-field
A noble life with stainless shield,
And swords may rust
Above their dust,...

Gather the sacred dust
Of the warriors tried and true,
Who bore the flag of a Nation's trust
And fell in a cause, though lost, still just,
And died for me and you.

Gather them one and all,...

Old trees, old trees! in your mystic gloom
There's many a warrior laid,
And many a nameless and lonely tomb
Is sheltered beneath your shade.
Old trees, old trees! without pomp or prayer...

Only a Dream!
It floated thro'
The sky of a lonely sleep
As floats a gleam
Athwart the Blue
Of a golden clouded Deep.

Only a Dream!
I calmly slept.
Meseems I called a name;...

Lost! Lost! Lost!
The cry went up from a sea --
The waves were wild with an awful wrath,
Not a light shone down on the lone ship's path;
The clouds hung low:
Lost! Lost! Lost!...

Only a few more years!
Weary years!
Only a few more tears!
Bitter tears!
And then -- and then -- like other men,
I cease to wander, cease to weep,
Dim shadows o'er my way shall creep;...

We laugh when our souls are the saddest,
We shroud all our griefs in a smile;
Our voices may warble their gladdest,
And our souls mourn in anguish the while.

And our eyes wear a summer's bright glory,...

'Twas the dusky Hallowe'en --
Hour of fairy and of wraith,
When in many a dim-lit green,
'Neath the stars' prophetic sheen,
As the olden legend saith,
All the future may be seen,...