ric night is set to song!
The cuckoo calls, the plaining whippoorwill
Cries faint and far away; more distant still
The hoopoe, hid his marshy haunts among,
Wails with the cry of some lost soul in pain;
The nightingale engilds the pulsant dark
With golden-throated melody--but hark!
The night-jar's discord mars the perfect strain.

The night wears on, black shadows throng apace,
The wood is still, the moon grows wan and old,
White marsh-mists wreathe like clammy arms, death-cold,
And moth-wings like dead fingers sweep my face;
The bittern wailing leaves the sombre pool,
Voicing the world-old pain that never dies;
The owl with ghoulish laughter outward flies
Like some weird Vivien shrieking, "Fool!" and "Fool!"

Insatiate

What though she lieth mute on yonder hill?
Though ivy green and shadowy eglatere
Have held in tender fold through many a year
Her quiet grave, I fear her--fear her still.

He loved her once. Ay, though he hold me fast
And sear my lips with kisses burning-sweet,
No touch of mine can make his life replete
For man's first love is oftentimes his last.

A still face glimmers through my dreams for aye.
E'en when I strain him close with feverish grasp
Wan grave-cold fingers loose the clinging clasp,
And grave-cold lips my fervid kisses stay.

She lives incarnate in each flower fair,
Her eyes illume the violets in my hand,
The golden-rod that lights the Autumn land
Seems but the scattered star-dust of her hair.

Love's perfect flower may never bloom for me--
For me his wife. For ah! I fear her still
Who lies forever mute on yonder hill.
He loved her once. Would God that I were she!

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes

Table of Contents: Slight listing changes were made to match poem titles.

Page 29: Added opening parenthesis:
(And I knew that tho' many a woman had loved you,
Till that moment, the glance of no woman had moved you!)

Page 47: Added closing parenthesis:
(Thank God, he suffered so brief a while)

Page 70: Corrected wathway to pathway:
And where the pathway breasts the hill,

Page 79: Added a blank line after first stanza:
Piping "Good-bye, good-bye!"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Path of Dreams, by Leigh Gordon Giltner

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF DREAMS ***

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