Twining arms about us thrown—­
Warm caresses, all our own,
Can but stay us for a spell—­
Love hath little new to tell
To the soul in need supreme,
Aching ever with the dream
Of the endless bliss it may
Find in Lands of Where-Away!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

DREAMER, SAY

Dreamer, say, will you dream for me
  A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,
Whose border sips of a foaming sea
  With lips of coral and silver sand;
Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,
  Or lave themselves in the tearful mist
The great wild wave of the breaker weeps
  O’er crags of opal and amethyst?

Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream
  Of tropic shades in the lands of shine,
Where the lily leans o’er an amber stream
  That flows like a rill of wasted wine,—­
Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,
  Parry the shafts of the Indian sun
Whose splintering vengeance falls between
  The reeds below where the waters run?

Dreamer, say, will you dream of love
  That lives in a land of sweet perfume,
Where the stars drip down from the skies above
  In molten spatters of bud and bloom? 
Where never the weary eyes are wet,
  And never a sob in the balmy air,
And only the laugh of the paroquette
  Breaks the sleep of the silence there?

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

OUR OWN

They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;
  We gossip, knee-by-knee;
They tell us all that they have planned—­
  Of all their joys to be,—­
And, laughing, leave us:  And, to-day,
  All desolate we cry
Across wide waves of voiceless graves—­
  Good-by!  Good-by!  Good-by!

THE OLD TRUNDLE-BED

O the old trundle-bed where I slept when a boy! 
What canopied king might not covet the joy? 
The glory and peace of that slumber of mine,
Like a long, gracious rest in the bosom divine: 
The quaint, homely couch, hidden close from the light,
But daintily drawn from its hiding at night. 
O a nest of delight, from the foot to the head,
Was the queer little, clear little, old trundle-bed!

O the old trundle-bed, where I wondering saw
The stars through the window, and listened with awe
To the sigh of the winds as they tremblingly crept
Through the trees where the robin so restlessly slept: 
Where I heard the low, murmurous chirp of the wren,
And the katydid listlessly chirrup again,
Till my fancies grew faint and were drowsily led
Through the maze of the dreams of the old trundle bed.

[Illustration]

O the old trundle-bed!  O the old trundle-bed! 
With its plump little pillow, and old-fashioned spread;
Its snowy-white sheets, and the blankets above,
Smoothed down and tucked round with the touches of love;
The voice of my mother to lull me to sleep
With the old fairy-stories my memories keep
Still fresh as the lilies that bloom o’er the head
Once bowed o’er my own in the old trundle-bed.