dream

Beside a crib that holds a baby’s stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
Her fair-haired cherub boy.

Upon the cradle’s side her light touch keeping,
She gently rocks it, crooning low a song;
And smiles to think her little one is sleeping,
So peacefully and long.

Step light, breathe low, break not her rapturous dreaming,
Wake not the sleeper from her trance of joy,
For never more save in sweet slumber-seeming
Will she watch o’er her little boy.

Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor life nor light to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity,

Come with me, and we will blow
Lots of bubbles, as we go;
Bubbles bright as ever Hope
Drew from fancy -- or from soap;
Bright as e'er the South Sea sent
from its frothy element!
Come with me, and we will blow
Lots of bubbles, as we go.
Mix the lather, Johnny W--lks,
Thou, who rhym'st so well to bilks;
Mix the lather - who can be
Fitter for such task than thee,
Great M.P. for Sudsbury!

For the frothy charm is ripe,
Puffing Peter bring thy pipe, --
Thou, whom ancient Coventry,

Each day with so much ceremony
begins, with birds, with bells,
with whistles from a factory;
such white-gold skies our eyes
first open on, such brilliant walls
that for a moment we wonder
'Where is the music coming from, the energy?
The day was meant for what ineffable creature
we must have missed? ' Oh promptly he
appears and takes his earthly nature
   instantly, instantly falls
   victim of long intrigue,
   assuming memory and mortal
   mortal fatigue.

More slowly falling into sight

FOOLISH prater, what dost thou
So early at my window do?
Cruel bird, thou'st ta'en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream that ne'er must equall'd be
By all that waking eyes may see.
Thou this damage to repair
Nothing half so sweet and fair,
Nothing half so good, canst bring,
Tho' men say thou bring'st the Spring.

I SAW a picture once by Angelo.
“Unfinished,” said the critic; “done in youth;”
And that was all, no thought of praise, forsooth!
He was informed, and doubtless it was so.
And yet, I let an hour of dreaming go
The way of all time, touched to tears and ruth,
Passion and joy, the prick of conscience’ tooth,
Before that careworn Christ’s divine, soft glow.
The painter’s yearning with an unsure hand
Had moved me more than might his master days;
He seemed to speak like one whose Meccaland

When in your sober mood my body have ye laid
In sight and sound of things beloved, woodland and stream,
And the green turf has hidden the poor bones ye deem
No more a close companion with those rhymes we made;

Then, if some bird should pipe, or breezes stir the glade,
Thinking them for the while my voice, so let them seem
A fading message from the misty shores of dream,
Or wheresoever, following Death, my feet have strayed.

Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn,
Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn;
It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang,
The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang
When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea --
"The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free."

The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away,
All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay --

Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken,
   Winding thro' the forest green,
Barred with shadow and with sunshine,
   Misty vistas drawn between.
Grim, scarred bluegums ranged austerely,
   Lifting blackened columns each
To the large, fair fields of azure,
   Stretching ever out of reach.

See the hardy bracken growing
   Round the fallen limbs of trees;
And the sharp reeds from the marshes,
   Washed across the flooded leas;
And the olive rushes, leaning
   All their pointed spears to cast

Of all the Poisons that the fruitful Earth
E'er yet brought forth, or Monsters she gave Birth,
Nought to Mankind has e'er so fatal been,
As thou, accursed Gold, their Care and Sin.

Methinks I the Advent'rous Merchant see,
Ploughing the faithless Seas, in search of thee,
His dearest Wife and Children left behind,
(His real Wealth) while he, a Slave to th' Wind,
Sometimes becalm'd, the Shore with longing Eyes
Wishes to see, and what he wishes, Spies:
For a rude Tempest wakes him from his Dream,