If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing
bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life's fresh crown
Only a
rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to
tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?
A cottage lone and still,
With bowers nigh,
Shadowy, my woes to
still,
Until I die.
Such pearl from Life's fresh crown
Fain would I
shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will,
This would best heal my
ill,
This would I buy.
At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale
we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can
steal from the regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt
come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember'd even in the sky.
Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear,
When our voices
commingling breathed like one on the ear;
And as Echo far off through the
vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom
of Souls
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To
sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly
that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow-
It felt like the
warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy
fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er
me-
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too
well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met-
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could
forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long
years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine-
A green
isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy
fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Now all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy
grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams -
In what ethereal
dances,
By what eternal streams!
Love is a sickness full of woe,
All remedies refusing;
A plant that
with most cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?
More we
enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries--
Heigh ho!
Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath
made it of a kind
Not well, nor full nor fasting.
Why so?
More we enjoy
it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries--
Heigh ho!
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such
delight
As prison'd birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the
white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting
sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away . . . O, but
every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be
done