Chapter I

Not for you and me the path
Winding through the shadowless
Fields of morning's dewiness!
Where the brook that hurries hath
Laughter lighter than a boy's;
Where recurrent odors poise,
Romp-like, with irreverent tresses,
In the sun; and leaves and boughs
Build a music-haunted house
For the winds to hang their dresses,
Whisper-silken, rustling in.
Ours a path that led unto
Twilight regions gray with dew;
Where moon-vapors gathered thin
Over acres sisterless
Of all healthy beauty; where
Fungus growths made sad the air
As a phantom-felt caress:
Under darkness and strange stars,
To the sorrow-silenced bars
Of a dubious forestland,
Where the wood-scents seemed to stand,
And the sounds on either hand,
Clad like Sleep's own servitors
In the shadowy livery
Of the ancient House of Dreams,
Which before us,--fitfully,
With white intermittent gleams
Of its pale-lamped windows,--shone,
Echoing with the dim unknown.

II

To say to Hope,--Take all from me,
And grant me naught:
Take rose, and song, and melody,
And word and thought:
Then all my life make me her slave,--
Is all I crave.

To say to Time,--Be true to me,
Nor grant me less
Of loss, of grief, of memory,
Of heart's distress:
Then for her love set me a task,
Is all I ask.