The Dreamers | Page 2

I go my way._
A word unto my mother to bid her think o' me?Only as a little lad playing at her knee.
A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again?Two laughing lads in Springtime a-racing down the glen.
A word unto my true love--a single word--to pray?If one day I cross her path to turn her eyes away.
MONSEIGNEUR PLAYS
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--?Within her gilded chair the Queen?Listens, her rustling maids between;?A very tulip-garden stirred?To hear the fluting of a bird;?Faint sunlight through the casement falls?On cupids painted on the walls?At play with doves. Precisely set?Awaits the slender legged spinet?Expectant of its happy lot,?The while the player stays to twist?The cobweb ruffle from his wrist.?A pause, and then--(Ah, whisper not)?Monseigneur plays his new gavotte.
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--?Hark, 'tis the faintest dawn of Spring,?So still the dew drops whispering?Is loud upon the violets;?Here in this garden of Pierrettes'?Where Pierrot waits, ah, hasten Sweet,?And hear; on dainty, tripping feet?She comes--the little, glad coquette.?"Ah thou, Pierrot?" "Ah thou, Pierrette?"?A kiss, nay, hear--a bird wakes, then?A silence--and they kiss again,?"Ah, Mesdames, have you quite forgot--"?(So laughs his music.) "Love's first kiss??Let this note lead you then, and this?Back to that fragrant garden-spot."?Monseigneur plays his new gavotte.
Monseigneur plays his new gavotte--
Ah, hear--in that last note they go?The little lovers laughing so;?Kissing their finger-tips, they dance?From out this gilded room of France.?Adieu! Monseigneur rises now?Ready for compliment and bow,?Playing about his mouth the while?Its cynical, accustomed smile,?Protests and, hand on heart, avers?The patience of his listeners.?"A masterpiece? Ah, surely not."?A grey-eyed maid of honour slips?A long stemmed rose across her lips?And drops it; does he guess her thought??Monseigneur plays his new gavotte.
UNBELIEF
Your chosen grasp the torch of faith--the key?Of very certainty is theirs to hold.?They read Your word in messages of gold.?Lord, what of us who have no light to see?And in the darkness doubt, whose hands may be?Broken upon the door, who find but cold?Ashes of words where others see enscrolled,?The glorious promise of Life's victory.
Oh, well for those to whom You gave the light?(The light we may not see by) whose award?Is that sure key--that message luminous,?Yet we, your people stumbling in the night,?Doubting and dumb and disbelieving--Lord,?Is there no word for us--no word for us?
THE SILENT ONE
The moon to-night is like the sun?Through blossomed branches seen;?Come out with me, dear silent one,?And trip it on the green.
"Nay, Lad, go you within its light,?Nor stay to urge me so--?'Twas on another moonlit night?My heart broke long ago."
Oh loud and high the pipers play?To speed the dancers on;?Come out and be as glad as they,?Oh, little Silent one.
"Nay, Lad, where all your mates are met?Go you the selfsame way,?Another dance I would forget?Wherein I too was gay."
But here you sit long day by day?With those whose joys are done;?What mates these townfolk old and grey?For you dear Silent one.
"Nay, Lad, they're done with joys and fears.?Rare comrades should we prove,?For they are very old with years?And I am old with love."
THE ROSE
I took the love you gave, Ah, carelessly,?Counting it only as a rose to wear?A little moment on my heart no more,?So many roses had I worn before,?So lightly that I scarce believed them there.
But, Lo! this rose between the dusk and dawn?Hath turned to very flame upon my breast,?A flame that burns the day-long and the night,?A flame of very anguish and delight?That not for any moment yields me rest.
And I am troubled with a strange, new fear,?How would it be if even to your door?I came to cry your pitying one day,?And you should lightly laugh and lightly say,?"That was a rose I gave you--nothing more."
THE SONG OF THE YOUNG PAGE
All that I know of love I see?In eyes that never look at me;?All that I know of love I guess?But from another's happiness.
A beggar at the window I,?Who, famished, looks on revelry;?A slave who lifts his torch to guide?The happy bridegroom to his bride.
My granddam told me once of one?Whom all her village spat upon,?Seeing the church from out its breast?Had cast him cursed and unconfessed.
An outcast he who dared not take?The wafer that God's vicars break,?But dull-eyed watched his neighbours pass?With shining faces from the Mass.
Oh thou, my brother, take my hand,?More than one God hath blessed and banned?And hidden from man's anguished glance?The glory of his countenance.
All that I know of love I see?In eyes that never look at me;?All that I know of love I guess?But from another's happiness.
THE NEW SPRING
The long grief left her old--and then?Came love and made her young again?As though some newer, gentler Spring?Should start dead roses blossoming;?Old roses that have lain full long?In some forgotten book of song,?Brought from their darkness to be one?With lilting winds and rain and sun;?And as they too might bring away?From that dim volume where they