But what are all these April dreams? Less tangible the landscape seems; The windmills, barns and houses swim In a sphered ether, wheeling, dim. Red cattle on green meadows pass Across a belt of bluest sky Like objects in the old field glass. The chickens stalk about the yard Like phantom things in my regard And songs and cries and voices sound Like muffled echoes from the ground. Stones and dead sticks crawl and move; And bones that through the winter lay Something of living power betray. I sink in all things dizzily, Made one with nature, all I see, Until I have no way to prove My separate identity. Yet death is what? Why, death is this: Something that comes but is far off. They worry sometimes for my cough. I know they watch me, know they cry, But what can wreck my earth or sky? The doctor comes now every day And with my father sits and talks, Or stands about the garden walks. One day I hear them: “It appears Sometimes in ten or twenty years As madness or paralysis. Sometimes it passes, leaves a scar And never troubles one again. You say you had this in the war? It’s hit your boy as phthisis, Also I think he’s going blind.” I saw my father trembling wind Some plucked grass round and round his hand. They noticed me, walked further on And left me dreaming where I sat. Some years since that day now are gone. I have no world now, none but night. My father’s world lay back of mine And wrecked my world so guarded, safe, So cherished by a God-watched sky Which looked on summers rise and pass, So like an image caught and held By witchery of the old field glass. THE PRINCESS’ SONG “Blow, blow, thou wind, Blow Conrad’s hat away, Its rolling do not stay, Till I have combed my hair, And tied it up behind.” Blow, blow, thou wind, Blow Conrad’s love away, My prince will come to-day. Let him but find me fair, And searching find. The queen my mother grieves For hopes that went astray. Blow thou my grief away, Among the April flags, Among the dancing leaves. Fill thou their golden wings, And make the great clouds fly Like swans across the sky, Above the mountain crags Where the young eaglet clings. Blow--yet the mad wind dies Among the flags and ferns. And Conrad still returns, Ere I have bound my hair, Or dried my eyes. Blow, blow, thou wind-- Blow Conrad’s love away. But since it will not stay, Blow thou afar my care And make me kind. As even, lad, thou art. Blow, blow, thou wind, but since Vainly I wait the prince Come, Conrad, loose my hair,-- Thou loyal heart! THE FURIES I