clouds
Are tenderly, warmly bright.
And there is a ship with turquoise sails,
With sails like a living light!

Ah, the ship is bringing us dreams come true,
And hopes that are all dew-kissed;
It is bringing us days that are all aglow
With scarlet and amethyst;...
Bringing us faith to find our way
Through a world that is wrapped in mist.

Our window looks on the city street,
We can glimpse the city sky;
But our hearts are gay at the close of day,
Though the tired crowds pass by
With heavy feet through the blinding heat,
Like a sullen, sluggish tide....
For hand in hand through a magic land.
We are wandering side by side.

THE LADY ACROSS THE COURT

She only comes when night is near,
And stands a moment quietly
Beside her window, in the dusk--
She lives across the court from me--
And though I cannot see her eyes
Because she is too far away,
I somehow feel that they are kind,
And very soft, and widely gray!

Her hands are only dim white blurs,
That rest against the window pane;
And yet I know that they are firm,
And cool and sweet as April rain.
And, oh, I cannot help but wish
As, through the dark, I go to bed,
That they might rest a moment like
A little prayer upon my head!

She only comes when night is near,
I do not know who she can be;
I never see her anywhere
But just across the court from me....
I am so small the curtains hide
The wistful smiles that I have smiled,
And yet I, somehow, think she feels
The love of me--a lonely child.

TO A PORCELAIN PUPPY DOG

Oh, pudgy porcelain puppy dog from far-away Japan,
I saw you in a shop to-day where lonesomely you
sat
Upon a velvet cushion that was colored gold and
purple,
Between a bowl of goldfish, and a sleeping wooden
cat.

I wonder what you thought about as stolidly you sat
there,
A grin of faint derision on your pudgy porcelain
face;
I wonder if you dreamed about some cherry blossom
tea house,
And if the goldfish bored you in their painted
Chinese case?

I wonder if you dreamed about the laughter of the
geishas