A Hidden Life

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A GIFT.


My gift would find thee fast asleep,

  And arise a dream in thee; A violet sky o'er the roll and sweep

  Of a purple and pallid sea; And a crescent moon from my sky should creep

  In the golden dream to thee.

Thou shouldst lay thee down, and sadly list

  To the wail of our cold birth-time; And build thee a temple, glory-kissed,

  In the heart of the sunny clime; Its columns should rise in a music-mist,

  And its roofs in a spirit-rhyme.

Its pillars the solemn hills should bind

  'Neath arches of starry deeps; Its floor the earth all veined and lined;

  Its organ the ocean-sweeps; And, swung in the hands of the grey-robed wind,

  Its censers the blossom-heaps.

And 'tis almost done; for in this my rhyme,

  Thanks to thy mirror-soul, Thou wilt see the mountains, and hear the chime

  Of the waters after the roll; And the stars of my sky thy sky will climb,

  And with heaven roof in the whole.





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