Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By A Book of Dreams (1882). I. A Haunted HouseHarriet Eleanor Hamilton-King (18401920)
T
The roses are bursting on every side.
And the shining laurels a folding-screen.
Purple and gold drooping heavily.
Is scattered by hands invisible.
Voices of laughter and running feet.
It is always summer and sunshine there.
There flows sweet music between the walls.
Whom no one sees and no one knows.
Than any that meet and mingle there.
One pearl lies among them all alone;
The full moon’s face from the clouds looks out;
The star of the evening seems to lie.
As the pearl, or the moon, or the evening star,
Floats out from its waves of dusky hair,
Whose lost looks dream upon Paradise.
One knoweth too well, and knoweth too long.
Though it pass and meet them in the air,
Breathing of love and of lost delight.
One moment strikes and then fades again.
And sinks before they can look around.
A sunbeam glances from bough to bough.
It is but the dying note of the song.
To the feast unbidden that guest comes there.
The house is filled with a dream at night.
Not a sound is heard, nor step on the floor;
Peace be to this house, and to all within!
Who stands beside them with soft white feet?
Sleep on, dear children, so safe and fair!
Doth a dream at last between them glide.
Of all the angels that guard the place,
The least is not that forgotten face.