The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume I Part 14

The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear From underneath each hedge and bush and tree, Deep in the dew-drenched gra.s.ses everywhere.

The simple sound dispels the fantasy Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind.

It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,

To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind Lisp through the dark thick leaf.a.ge overhead-- To see the rosy half-moon soar behind

The black slim-branching elms. Sad thoughts have fled, Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries And odd caprices fill us in their stead.

From yonder broken disk the redness dies, Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams, Then over the h.o.a.r tree-tops climbs the skies,

Blanched ever more and more, until it beams Whiter than crystal. Like a scroll unfurled, And shadowy as a landscape seen in dreams,

Reveals itself the sleeping, quiet world, Painted in tender grays and whites subdued-- The speckled stream with flakes of light impearled,

The wide, soft meadow and the ma.s.sive wood.

Naught is too wild for our credulity In this weird hour: our finest dreams hold good.

Quaint elves and frolic flower-sprites we see, And fairies weaving rings of gossamer, And angels floating through the filmy air.

V. In the Night.

Let us go in: the air is dank and chill With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high O'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill.

This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky So weary long the s.p.a.ce that lies between That sacred joy and this dark mystery

Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen, In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day, Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been.

Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest, Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay,

With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed.

The mystery and the shadow wax too deep; She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep.

VI. Faerie.

From the oped lattice glance once more abroad While the ethereal moontide bathes with light Hill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road.

All gracious myths born of the shadowy night Recur, and hover in fantastic guise, Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight.

On yonder soft gray hill Endymion lies In rosy slumber, and the moonlit air Breathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes.

'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare, Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin, Vanis.h.i.+ng faces, and bright floating hair.

The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin, Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and gra.s.s Gambol and dance, and winding out and in

Leave circles of spun dew where'er they pa.s.s.

Through the blue ether the freed Ariel flies; Enchantment holds the air; a swarming ma.s.s

Of myriad dusky, gold-winged dreams arise, Throng toward the gates of sense, and so possess The soul, and lull it to forgetfulness.

VII. Confused Dreams.

O strange, dim other-world revealed to us, Beginning there where ends reality, Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous

With souls from either sphere! now enter we Thy twisted paths. Barred is the silver gate, But the wild-carven doors of ivory

Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things, With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,

Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.

All humors of the blood and brain take shape, And fright us with our own imaginings.

A trouble weighs upon us: no escape From this unnatural region can there be.

Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,