In my dream last night it seemed I stood
With a boy’s glad heart in my boyhood’s wood.
The beryl green and the cairngorm brown
Of the day through the deep leaves sifted down.
The rippling drip of a passing shower
Rinsed wild aroma from herb and flower.
The splash and urge of a waterfall
Spread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul.
And I waded the strip of the creek’s dry bed
For the colored keel and the arrow-head.
And I found the cohosh coigne the same
Tossing with torches of pearly flame.
The owlet dingle of vine and brier,
That the butterfly-weed flecked fierce with fire.
The elder bosk with its warm perfume,
And the yellow stars of the daisy bloom;
The moss, the fern, and the touch-me-not
I breathed, and the mint-smell keen and hot.
And I saw the bird, that sang its best,
In the tufted sumac building its nest.
And I saw the chipmunk’s stealthy face,
And the rabbit crouched in a grassy place.
And I watched the crows, that cawed and cried,
Harrying the hawk at the forest-side;
The bees that sucked in the blossoms slim,
And the wasps that built on the lichened limb.
And felt the silence, the dusk, the dread
Of the spot where they buried the unknown dead:
The water-murmur, the insect hum,
And a far bird calling, “Come, oh, come!"—
No sweeter music can mortals make
To ease the heart of its human ache!—
And it seemed in my dream,—that was all too true,—
That I met in the woods again with you.
A sun-tanned face and brown bare knees,
And hands stained red with dewberries.
And we stopped a moment some word to tell,
And then in the woods we kissed farewell.
But once I met you; yet, lo! it seems
Again and again we meet in dreams.
And I ask my soul what it all may mean:
If this is the love that should have been.
And oft and often I wonder, Can
What Fate intends be changed by man?