Dreams and Days: Poems Part 4

NEW WORLDS

With my beloved I lingered late one night.

At last the hour when I must leave her came: But, as I turned, a fear I could not name Possessed me that the long sweet evening might Prelude some sudden storm, whereby delight Should perish. What if death, ere dawn, should claim One of us? What, though living, not the same Each should appear to each in morning-light?

Changed did I find her, truly, the next day: Ne'er could I see her as of old again.

That strange mood seemed to draw a cloud away, And let her beauty pour through every vein Sunlight and life, part of me. Thus the lover With each new morn a new world may discover.

NIGHT IN NEW YORK

Haunted by unknown feet-- Ways of the midnight hour!

Strangely you murmur below me, Strange is your half-silent power.

Places of life and of death, Numbered and named as streets, What, through your channels of stone, Is the tide that unweariedly beats?

A whisper, a sigh-laden breath, Is all that I hear of its flowing.

Footsteps of stranger and foe-- Footsteps of friends, could we meet-- Alike to me in my sorrow; Alike to a life left alone.

Yet swift as my heart they throb, They fall thick as tears on the stone: My spirit perchance may borrow New strength from their eager tone.

Still ever that slip and slide Of the feet that shuffle or glide, And linger or haste through the populous waste Of the shadowy, dim-lit square!

And I know not, from the sound, As I sit and ponder within, The goal to which those steps are bound,-- On hest of mercy, or hest of sin, Or joy's short-measured round; Yet a meaning deep they bear In their vaguely m.u.f.fled din.

Roar of the mult.i.tude, Chafe of the million-crowd, To this you are all subdued In the murmurous, sad night-air!

Yet whether you thunder aloud, Or hush your tone to a prayer, You chant amain through the modern maze The only epic of our days.

Still as death are the places of life; The city seems crumbled and gone, Sunk 'mid invisible deeps-- The city so lately rife With the stir of brain and brawn.

Haply it only sleeps; But what if indeed it were dead, And another earth should arise To greet the gray of the dawn?

Faint then our epic would wail To those who should come in our stead.

But what if that earth were ours?

What if, with holier eyes, We should meet the new hope, and not fail?

Weary, the night grows pale: With a blush as of opening flowers Dimly the east s.h.i.+nes red.

Can it be that the morn shall fulfil My dream, and refas.h.i.+on our clay As the poet may fas.h.i.+on his rhyme?

Hark to that mingled scream Rising from workshop and mill-- Hailing some marvelous sight; Mighty breath of the hours, Poured through the trumpets of steam; Awful tornado of time, Blowing us whither it will!

G.o.d has breathed in the nostrils of night, And behold, it is day!

THE SONG-SPARROW

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket Close beside my garden gate, Where, so light, from post to picket Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate; Who, with meekly folded wing, Comes to sun himself and sing.

It was there, perhaps, last year, That his little house he built; For he seems to perk and peer, And to twitter, too, and tilt The bare branches in between, With a fond, familiar mien.

Once, I know, there was a nest, Held there by the sideward thrust Of those twigs that touch his breast; Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust Caught it, over-full of snow,-- Bent the bush,--and stole it so.

Thus our highest holds are lost, In the ruthless winter's wind, When, with swift-dismantling frost, The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd Of their leaf.a.ge, grow too cold For frail hopes of summer's mold.

But if we, with spring-days mellow, Wake to woeful wrecks of change, And the sparrow's ritornello Scaling still its old sweet range; Can we do a better thing Than, with him, still build and sing?

Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed Thought in me beyond all telling; Shootest through me sunlight, seed, And fruitful blessing, with that welling Ripple of ecstatic rest Gurgling ever from thy breast!

And thy breezy carol spurs Vital motion in my blood, Such as in the sap-wood stirs, Swells and shapes the pointed bud Of the lilac; and besets The hollow thick with violets.

Yet I know not any charm That can make the fleeting time Of thy sylvan, faint alarm Suit itself to human rhyme: And my yearning rhythmic word Does thee grievous wrong, blithe bird.

So, however thou hast wrought This wild joy on heart and brain, It is better left untaught.

Take thou up the song again: There is nothing sad afloat On the tide that swells thy throat!

I LOVED YOU, ONCE--

And did you think my heart Could keep its love unchanging, Fresh as the buds that start In spring, nor know estranging?

Listen! The buds depart: I loved you once, but now-- I love you more than ever.

'T is not the early love; With day and night it alters, And onward still must move Like earth, that never falters For storm or star above.

I loved you once; but now-- I love you more than ever.

With gifts in those glad days How eagerly I sought you!

Youth, s.h.i.+ning hope, and praise: These were the gifts I brought you.

In this world little stays: I loved you once, but now-- I love you more than ever.

A child with glorious eyes Here in our arms half sleeping-- So pa.s.sion wakeful lies; Then grows to manhood, keeping Its wistful, young surprise: I loved you once, but now-- I love you more than ever.

When age's pinching air Strips summer's rich possession, And leaves the branches bare, My secret in confession Still thus with you I'll share: I loved you once, but now-- I love you more than ever.