DREAMS.

A TANGLED sheen of sunlit hair;

A face most exquisitely fair;

A little ear of dainty mould,

That blushed as if some whisper told

A lover's secret; laughing eyes,

All joyous with a sweet surprise ;

And flushes playing on a cheek

More soft than peach, than plum more sleek;

Ripe lips that in their pouting sue,

And rival roses in their hue ;

A form that, neither short nor tall,

Is in its grace majestical, -

I see this, love this; that is all.

In vain for me to strive to paint

The spice of sinner with the saint,

The roguish ways and sayings quaint,

That point my darling's loveliness :

The gentle rustle of her dress,

The distant echo of her tread,

The wayward turning of her head;

Her voice, as low and musical

As far-off water's murmurous call;

Her laughter, dainty as the breeze

That ripples through the tops of trees;

Her manifold enchanting wiles,

Of forced frowns and sunny smiles,

Do each some added charm impart,

And faster bind my captive heart.

Sometimes I fancy that I dwell

"With her my soul adores so well,

Beneath the skies of Italy,

Where golden hours unheeded fly:

We watch the long waves rise and fall

And beat against the harbor wall;

Almost beyond the scope of eye

We mark the white-winged shallops fly,

And catch across the dancing waves,

Stray snatches and remittent slaves

Of songs, the fishermen, away

Beyond the girdle of the bay,

Are singing as they homeward come;

We list the insects' drowsy hum,

And where the oak and olive twine

We see the clusters of the vine

Gathered by contadinas fair,

With sun-browned cheeks and lustrous hair.

Or sometimes in a little boat

My love and I together float

Upon the smooth immensity

Of some soft-heaving tropic sea,

In unconcerned idleness,

With naught to question or confess,

With nothing but the vault above

To circumscribe our wealth of love,

And nothing but the main around

Our idle happiness to bound;

And sailing onward in our quest

Of peace, we find within the west,

Whose purple hazes shut us in

From all this world's tumultuous din,

A little isle, like jewel laid

Upon the bosom of a maid.

The flowers should blossom at our feet,

The lilies frail and violets sweet

And all the air, with fragrance fraught

From perfumed beds of jasmine brought,

Should woo us with its soft caress

And hovering round us seem to bless;

And gurgling low through mossy nook

Should flow a silver-threaded brook,

Along whose verdant banks we'd stray

And watch the dragon-flies at play;

Or plunging into depths of shade

By waving ferns and lush grass made,

We'd see the spotted deer pass by

And turn on us their gentle eye

All unafeared; and when night came,

And western skies were all aflame,

We'd seek some cliff that beetling stood

And frowned upon the surging flood,

And watch the sunset fade away

And shadows come in garb of gray

To blot the landscape from our sight;

But ere we felt the loss of light,

The stars should shimmer in the skies

And beckon to the moon to rise,

And straightway o'er the water's rim

Her face should peer, - at first so dim,

It seemed as if some sunset ray

Had thought to lengthen out the day;

But soon in regal majesty

Her orb should climb the quiet sky,

And o'er the sea should dance a bright

And lustrous line of milky light,

And hand in hand we two would stray

Along the curvage of the bay,

And hear the ripples at our feet

Break on the sand with kisses sweet.

But stay! my visions are but dreams,

With which a lover's fancy teems.

I am not known to her I love;

So far she holds herself above

The toiling world in which I move;

And wealth and station pitiless,

Shut in her love and loveliness

From contact with ignoble things,

And only lover's madness brings

The glamour in whose mists I see

These rosy dreams of what might be.

F.C.G.