Classic Poem

I

Ah! did I dream?
Methought I wandered by a pleasant stream
Whose shaded course through mint and mosses wound,
Where little talking springlets did abound:
Bright, many-jewelled singers flashed above,
And sang wise hymns in praise of Joy and Love.

As thus I moved, my heart grew feather-light:
Care shrunk away as shrinks the huddling Night
That sees the rosy finger of the Dawn
Lifted in laughing menace, and is gone.
Grief rustled by me like the frightened snake
Stirring the dry leaves of the under-brake;
And had I companied with pinched Despair
Her lines had dimpled into laughter there.

II

Ah! did I dream?
I found a little glade
For meditation and retirement made;
Strange tropic trees and shrubs were there for shade,
With ancient oaks that dream of days of yore,
And many a lithe and white-armed sycamore.

All these were 'broidered o'er with rich device
Of patterned tints set as with fingers nice,
Draped with great vines and bloom of myriad hue,
Bright gold, vermilion, silver, rose, and blue;
Through which, as through a chapel's stained glass,
The sunbeams thronged to pass,
Grew faint, and swooned, and fell upon the grass.

Here glanced the waters of a little lake,
Where lay a radiant spirit, half awake,
Upon a lily-leaf, her rocking couch;
While orchids wafted from each jewelled pouch
Rich odors downward, and a roseate flower
Of the Victoria opened every hour.

III

Ah! did I dream?
The vision roused and gayly poising o'er
Each floating leaf, came lightly to the shore,
And greeted me with smiling lips apart,
And, as she smiled, her beauty filled my heart;
And swiftly, swiftly as a homing dove.
From her sweet eyes to mine her spirit came.
She did not need to breathe her happy name,
I felt that she was Joy, whose mate is Love,
And mother Peace. She shook her loosened hair,
That made a shining circle round her head.
But I — " Dear Joy! " I cried, " what do you here,
While weary men and women curse and moan,
And pine away, and sin, and hate, and jeer;
What do you, idling, with closed wings, alone? "

Ah me! she spoke, and sighed, if Joy can sigh:
" Scant welcome in the homes of men have I.
It is a time of doubting and unrest,
And Greed doth drive me forth from many a breast.
Alas! I have an ancient enemy,
Whose robes are tinsel, and her face a lie;
Men call her Pleasure, but I know her twin
Is Pain, their age, Remorse, their shadow, Sin. "
She ceased, then smiled, and whispered: " Oft I come
To this entrancing spot, my blithest home;
Hither I bring young children, fast asleep,
And dreamy youths, and pretty maids who keep
Their early innocence; and I have elves,
Who in these pleasaunces disport themselves,
Speeding in dance the merry moonlit hours,
And deftly training all my vines and flowers. "

Again she ceased, and shook her golden crown,
And beckoned to a little roving breeze,
And I, become as light as milkweed down,
Up-blown, was wafted o'er the distant trees,
I know not how.

IV

Ah, did I dream?
I never saw them more,
That glade, that lakelet, and its blooming shore.
Now is late August, and the Virgin stands
And drops her gleanings from warm, languid hands:
From thistle-heads the loving goldfinch sings,
Young birds, that late were nestlings, try their wings:
And sometimes, when I watch the moon arise,
I seem to see those glad and childlike eyes.
Tending my borders in the fading light.
I heard light-hearted laughter yesternight;
And e'en to-day I caught the transient gleam
Of iridescent pinions: — did I dream?