In her chamber musing stilly,
While the eve lay soft and mute
On the hills, and clouds as hilly —
List'ning but the insect's flute
With a humming music coming
Mingled with the wood-tick's drumming,
And the leaf-strung zephyr's lute —
Dora sat; in thought revolving
All the things of Wonder-land;
Dream to fainter dream dissolving,
Fixless as the silver sand
Through the clipping fingers slipping,
Fairy after fairy tripping
Fast away, a fleeting band.
Came the witching tales of Magic
Thickly sown in childhood's earth,
Marvels beautiful and tragic,
Piercing the thin mask of mirth
Deeply under to the wonder,
Whose intense aim for the Yonder
Seeks the pole-star of our birth.
Came the tale of Cinderella,
Once which bade us not despond,
As the pride which could not quell her
Bowed before that potent wand;
And to sadden, thrill and gladden,
Woke the story of Aladdin,
Oft in dim-eyed halos con'd.
Heaved the jars of Ali Baba
With their monstrous birth of men,
Sweat the demons at their labor,
In enchanted cave and den;
And the cunning, errand running,
Nimble Ariel rose, sunning
His quick wing in day again.
Lovely as the Morning's peãn,
When its song greets ear and eye,
From her pearl-grot in the Egean
Rose that child of Phantasy,
Undine, daughter of the water,
With the sweet soul, Love had brought her,
Sad with Immortality.
Faint, uncertain, dim and dimmer,
Throngs of kindred beings past.
Fleet and thrilling as the glimmer,
When the hearth-fire sobs its last,
With a mutter and low flutter,
Which makes silence felt, and utter
Darkness tremulous and aghast!
Onward swept the wondrous pageant,
But a childish prayer was left
For some strange, mysterious agent,
With light van and fingers deft,
So to serve her and re-nerve her
When the hand of care would swerve her;
Guarding still her being's weft.
For these many-hued Auroras
Lit all visions of her eye,
And her thoughts were dove-white soarers
In a vermil-tinctured sky,
Where were merging girlhood's virgin
Love-dreams, with the calm, unsurging
Blue of aspirations high.
"Winged sprite or limber fairy,
Genii mild or gentle Gnome,
Beings slender-armed and airy,
Nymphs who make your veiled home
In the amber-curtained chamber
Of a Rose, or sporting, clamber
O'er the nodding Blue-bell's dome;
"Come!" she whispered, like a whisper
Of the Zephyr which would make
Not a wrinkled wavelet crisper,
On the starred and moony lake,
"Come, 0 queen-eyed Nymphs, and keen-eyed
Fairies, from my Love serene-eyed,
With a gift for Love's dear sake.
"From my young heart's one companion
Mated with its earliest love,
Life-trunk of affection's banian,
Center of its pillared grove,
Mid the gleaming light of dreaming
Fancies through its green roof streaming,
Rooted never more to rove.
"Bird or Bee or bonny Budling —
Take the form befitting best,
To the eager Love-babes, huddling
Round the hearth-fire of my breast,
Bring unstinted treasures, minted
In his rich heart, and imprinted
With his image, beauty-blest.
"Spirits strong, of piercing vision,
And great wings, the sky to dare,
Waft me to some realms Elysian
O'er our cloud-encumbered air,
Where the Force is, that divorces
Doubt and hope, our joys and curses,
Love's delight and Love's despair."
Then a dream came down on Dora,
Such as veils the outward eye,
And a wide wing stooped before her,
Grand with Sunset's Alchemy;
Giant-sinewed far it winnowed —
Far as the round world continued —
Rock and hill and glowing sky.
And the old crags, unconvulsing,
Melted from their dull opaque,
Till she saw their slow life-pulsing —
Throbs which human ages make —
How each one adds to its monads,
Spark on spark, until a sun glads
Heaven, and man leaps forth awake.
Saw how every atom wheeleth
To its own by sure decree,
How the Heart of all things feeleth
Wants of each eternally;
Saw the sources of the Forces
Which whirl Nature down its courses
In vast life and harmony!
All the clouds of all the sorrows
Which have swelled life's thunder-gust.
All the hopes which ere their morrows
Drooped and dwindled into dust,
Pure and sky-bright from the twilight
Rose before the glorious eye-light
Of that broad-winged Angel — TRUST.
Wildest dreams of wild romances
Shoot their arrows of desire,
Impotent, from faint strung fancies,
Toward that everlasting Higher,
Where, uplifted, softly drifted
The serene soul of that gifted
Maiden, Love -taught to aspire.
Arched a rainbow o'er the Sphynx's
Smiling front and cloudy trail,
And the mystic tie which links us
To the Life beyond the Pale,
Down the hueless chain, sent viewless
Thrills of prescience, till the mewless
Soul half rent the eternal veil.
Then she knew that Life is onward
Ever, though its hopes should die;
That the darkest orbs wheel sunward
To a grand Eternity;
Knew by seeing, Life is BE-ing,
Will and work in one agreeing,
And high Trust is augury.
Soon the wing-beat fan'd these sparkles
Of dim truth to waves of light,
Driven in wide concentric circles,
Pulsing to the Infinite;
Time and error, hope and terror,
And the cloud-built Doubt's sierra
Faded from their noiseless flight.
Then it seemed, to tranced Dora,
That her loved-one's radiant soul
Was the central light before her,
Round which swept, as planets roll,
Every creature, Man and Nature,
Star and Flower, new love to teach her —
Love that, widening, clasped the whole.
Inward, thrilling to the center,
Outward, to the shores of Dream,
Did one living spirit enter —
Inward glow and outward gleam,
Re-creating, renovating
Life from loss, and permeating
All the sphere to Thought's extreme.
Beauty stooped and kissed the Lowly,
Earth with starry sisters ran,
Heaven sloped down its peerless glory
Level to the foot of man,
While the glancing feet, of dancing
Spirits hand in hand advancing,
Passed as far as vision can.
Soon, her startled lids upheaving,
Her dark eyes a moment strove,
From the light within, unweaving
Beams from azure eyes above; —
One before her, bending o'er her,
Taught the waking soul of Dora,
Life's true wizardry is Love.
Dora