Drive them hence, for they encumber Days and nights with waking pain; Tell them that I lie and slumber Under poppies, wet with rain. Who art thou that bendest praying Over me with clasped palms; Dim through surging darkness, saying Words of prayer and murmured psalms? Who art thou that kneelest weeping By the border of my bed? Cease thou, for I was but sleeping-- Dreaming, only, and not dead! III Phantoms flitting and uncertain Sweeping round the endless plain; Autumn twilight's dusky curtain, Drowsy poppies, drenched with rain. 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 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? THE ISLAND OF DEATH There is an island in a silent sea That rises--four, rough, rugged walls--on high Above the ocean in calm majesty. A mountain of despair against the sky! About its summit soaring seagulls fly, Or rest them in its lofty cypress trees, And greet the black barge bearing those who die Upon our earth to everlasting ease And pleasant lives that know not man's eternities. White halls and palaces their dwellings stand; These shadowy souls are all unknown to graves And live, faint phantoms in a fairy land Of dreams and idleness. They hear the waves Sing, and the winds come calling from the caves Of night beyond the ocean, and the cry Of screaming gulls; stare at each ship that braves This wilderness of waters, and glides by In awe-struck silence, ever fearing to draw nigh.