Eight Harvard Poets/Love Dream

LOVE DREAM

Strange that on warp and woof of dreams
Fancy should weave the web of truth,
And yet this fairy figment seems
      Part of a half-forgotten youth
Stolen from days I thought were sped
Out of the world beyond the dead.

Smiled she not when at the edge
      Of evening we walked alone
Plucking spring's blossoms from the hedge
      That she might wear them as her own,
Or do I hold a hopeless tryst
Here with a shadow, made of mist?

Now as will crumpled rose leaves, pent
      By fingers we can never know,
Rouse with the richness of their scent,
      Thoughts of a summer long ago,
All the expanse of land and sea
Speaks with a thousand tongues to me.

'Twas from this coast we watched slow form,
      Out of the frosty ocean's breath,

The blue-gray ramparts of the storm
      Flashing with signal fires of death,
Whilst with a murmur, far and wide,
Swept in the low wind with the tide.

Then, at last, when lips were dumb
      With fear of parting, did we wend
Along the meadow lanes that come
      From nowhere, and in nothing end,
And, smiling, kiss, though ill at ease,
Under the rustling orchard trees.

But will the promise given keep?
      Can the heart love still when 'tis dead?
What if the spirit, waked from sleep,
      Never recall the words it said?
Dwell in a dreamland, or else be
Lost in life's eternity?