Dreams

My gift would find thee fast asleep,
    And arise a dream in thee;
A violet sky o'er the roll and sweep
    Of a purple and pallid sea;
And a crescent moon from my sky should creep
    In the golden dream to thee.

Thou shouldst lay thee down, and sadly list
    To the wail of our cold birth-time;
And build thee a temple, glory-kissed,
    In the heart of the sunny clime;
Its columns should rise in a music-mist,
    And its roofs in a spirit-rhyme.

Its pillars the solemn hills should bind
    'Neath arches of starry deeps;
Its floor the earth all veined and lined;
    Its organ the ocean-sweeps;
And, swung in the hands of the grey-robed wind,
    Its censers the blossom-heaps.

And 'tis almost done; for in this my rhyme,
    Tha...

I.

As down life's morning stream we glide,
Full oft some Flower stoops o'er its side,
And beckons to the smiling shore,
Where roses strew the landscape o'er:
Yet as we reach that Flower to clasp,
It seems to mock the cheated grasp,
And whisper soft, with siren glee,
"My bloom is not oh not for thee!"


II.

Within Youth's flowery vale I tread,
By some entrancing shadow led
And Echo to my call replies
Yet, as she answers, lo, she flies!
And, as I seem to reach her cell
The grotto, where she weaves her spell
The Nymph's sweet voice afar I hear
So Love departs, as we draw near!


III.

Upon a mountain's dizzy height,
Ambition's temple gleams with light:
Proud forms are moving fair within,
And bid u...