dream

SEE how it flashes,
This grape-blood fine!—
Our beards it splashes,
O comrade mine!—
Life dust and ashes
Were, wanting wine.
Amontillado
Fires heart and eyes;
Champagne the shadow
Of care defies;
An El Dorado
In Rhine-wine lies;

Port has the mintage
Of generous deeds;
Tokay scorns stintage
And richly bleeds;
But this great vintage
The Wine-March leads.

Yet it is wanting
In poesy;
No legends haunting

God, if this were enough,
That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire;
That I ask nor hope nor hire,
Nut in the husk,
Nor dawn beyond the dusk,
Nor life beyond death:
God, if this were faith!
II
Having felt thy wind in my face
Spit sorrow and disgrace,
Having seen thine evil doom
In Golgotha and Khartoum,
And the brutes, the work of thine hands,
Fill with injustice lands
And stain with blood the sea:
If still in my veins the glee
Of the black night and the sun

A gaunt and hoary slab of stone
I found in desert place,
And wondered why it lay alone
In that abandoned place.
Said I: 'Maybe a Palace stood
Where now the lizards crawl,
With courts of musky quietude
And turrets tall.
II
Maybe where low the vultures wing
'Mid mosque and minaret,
The proud pavilion of a King
Was luminously set.
'Mid fairy fountains, alcoves dim,
Upon a garnet throne
He ruled,--and now all trace of him

How can I wait until you come to me?
The once fleet mornings linger by the way;
Their sunny smiles touched with malicious glee
At my unrest, they seem to pause, and play
Like truant children, while I sigh and say,
How can I wait?

How can I wait? Of old, the rapid hours
Refused to pause or loiter with me long;
But now they idly fill their hands with flowers,
And make no haste, but slowly stroll among
The summer blooms, not heeding my one song,
How can I wait?

I

If thou'lt be mine, the treasures of air,
Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet;
Whatever in Fancy's eye looks fair,
Or in Hope's sweet music sounds most sweet,
Shall be ours -- if thou wilt be mine, love!

II

Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove,
A voice divine shall talk in each stream;
The stars shall look like world of love,
And this earth be all one beautiful dream
In our eyes -- if thou wilt be mine, love!

III

The alder shudders in the April winds
off the moon. No one is awake and yet
sunlight streams across
the hundred still beds
of the public wards
for children. At ten
do we truly sleep
in a blessed sleep
guarded by angels
and social workers?
Do we dream of gold
found in secret trunks
in familiar rooms?
Do we talk to cats
and dogs? I think not.
I think when I was
ten I was almost
an adult, slightly
less sentimental
than now and better

In a herber green asleep whereas I lay,
The birds sang sweet in the middle of the day;
I dreamed fast of mirth and play:
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

Methought I walked still to and fro,
And from her company I could not go;
But when I wak'd it was not so:
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

Therefore my heart is surely pight
Of her alone to have a sight,
Which is my joy and heart's delight:
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

If I should die this night, (as well might be,
So pain has on my weakness worked its will),
And they should come at morn and look on me

Lying more white than I am wont, and still
In the strong silence of unchanging sleep,
And feel upon my brow the deepening chill,

And know me gathered to His time-long keep,
The quiet watcher over all men's rest,
And weep as those around a death-bed weep --

There would no anguish throb my vacant breast,
No tear-drop trickle down my stony cheek,

If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.

Or do you think they more than once can die,
Whom you deny?
Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
Like the old poets feign
And tell the pain
They met, but in the common way?

Or do you think 't too soon to yield,
And quit the field?
Nor is that right, they yield that first entreat;
Once one may crave for love,

Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth,
Far from me but here all the same without your knowing,
Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly.
Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know.
If you only knew.
Far from me and even farther yet from being unaware of me and still unaware.
Far from me because you undoubtedly do not love me or, what amounts to the
same thing, that I doubt you do.
Far from me because you consciously ignore my passionate desires.