dream

Scene: A circle of Druidic stones

First Fairy: Afar from our lawn and our levee,
O sister of sorrowful gaze!
Where the roses in scarlet are heavy
And dream of the end of their days,
You move in another dominion
And hang o'er the historied stone:
Unpruned in your beautiful pinion
Who wander and whisper alone.

All: Come away while the moon's in the woodland,
We'll dance and then feast in a dairy.
Though youngest of all in our good band,
You are wasting away, little fairy.

Now the Four-way Lodge is opened, now the Hunting Winds are loose --
Now the Smokes of Spring go up to clear the brain;
Now the Young Men's hearts are troubled for the whisper of the Trues,
Now the Red Gods make their medicine again!
Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched the black-tail mating?
Who hath lain alone to hear the wild-goose cry'
Who hath worked the chosen water where the ouananiche is waiting,
Or the sea-trout's jumping-crazy for the fly?

He must go -- go -- go away from here!

I have been given my charge to keep--
Well have I kept the same!
Playing with strife for the most of my life,
But this is a different game.
I'll not fight against swords unseen,
Or spears that I cannot view--
Hand him the keys of the place on your knees--
'Tis the Dreamer whose dreams come true!

Ask him his terms and accept them at once.
Quick, ere we anger him, go!
Never before have I flinched from the guns,
But this is a different show.
I'll not fight with the Herald of God

Lo! in the paintedoriel of the West,
Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The evening star, the star of love and rest!
And then anon she doth herself divest
Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
My morning and my evening star of love!
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,

On the snow-line of the summit stood the Spaniard's English slave;
And the frighted condor westward flew afar---
Where the torch of Cotopaxi lit the wide Pacific wave,
And the tender moon embraced a new-born star.
Blanched the cheek that Austral breezes off Van Diemen's coast had tanned,
Bent the form that on the deck stood stalwart there;
Slim and pallid as a woman's was the sailor's sunburnt hand,
And untimely silver streaked the strong man's hair.
From the forest far beneath him came the baffled bloodhound's bay,

And now it was evening.

And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."

And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?

Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.

And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:

People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.

Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.

He rides away with sword and spur,
Garbed in his warlike blazonry,
With gallant glance and smile for her
Upon the dim-lit balcony.
Her kiss upon his lips is warm,
Upon his breast he wears her rose,
From her fond arms to stress and storm
Of many a bannered field he goes.

He dreams of danger, glory, strife,
His voice is blithe, his hand is strong,
He rides perchance to death from life
And leaves his lady with a song;
But her blue-brimmed eyes are dim
With her deep anguish standing there,

Once a fairy
Light and airy
Married with a mortal;
Men, however,
Never, never
Pass the fairy portal.
Slyly stealing,
She to Ealing
Made a daily journey;
There she found him,
Clients round him
(He was an attorney).

Long they tarried,
Then they married.
When the ceremony
Once was ended,
Off they wended
On their moon of honey.
Twelvemonth, maybe,
Saw a baby
(Friends performed an orgie).
Much they prized him,
And baptized him

Now comes the evening of the mind.
Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood;
Here is the shadow moving down the page
Where you sit reading by the garden wall.
Now the dwarf peach trees, nailed to their trellises,
Shudder and droop. Your know their voices now,
Faintly the martyred peaches crying out
Your name, the name nobody knows but you.
It is the aura and the coming on.
It is the thing descending, circling, here.
And now it puts a claw out and you take it.
Thankfully in your lap you take it, so.

My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns.
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once.

I should employ the rake and the plow,
Having reached the autumn of ideas,
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees.

And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?

—O Sorrow—O Sorrow—Time consumes Life,