Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/109
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
105
Into familiar sounds, that conjured up
My boyhood's earliest dreams of isles, that lie
In farthest depths of ocean; girt with all
Of natural wealth and splendour—jewell'd isles—
Boundless in unimaginable spoils,
That earth is stranger to.
Isa. Thou dreamest still:
Thy boyhood's legends carry thee away,
Till thou forgett'st the mighty difference
'Twixt those two worlds—the one, where nature toils,
The other she but dreams of.
Leon. I dream not:
I heard it visibly to the sense, and hark!
It comes again: dost thou not hear it now!
List now, dear Isabel.
Isa. I hear naught.
Leon. Surely I marked it then; I could not dream:
'Twas like the winds among a bed of reeds,
And spoke a deep, heart-melancholy sound,
That made me sigh when I heard it.
Isa. No more!
Thou art too led away by idle thoughts,
Dear Leon; and, I fear me, thou dost take
Too much the colour of the passing cloud,
Filling thy heart with shadowings, that mislead
Thy roving thoughts, already too much prone
To empty speculation.
Leon. I said not wrong:
My spirit trick'd me not my sense was true.
I hear it now again. Far, far off, fine—
So delicate, as if some spirit form
Were for the first time murmuring into life,
And this its first complaining. Hearken now—
Nay, Isabel! thou dost not longer doubt—
Thy ears are traitors if they did not feel
The music as it came by us but now.
Isa. I heard a murmur truly, but so slight,
A breath of the wind might make it, or a sail
Drawn suddenly.
My boyhood's earliest dreams of isles, that lie
In farthest depths of ocean; girt with all
Of natural wealth and splendour—jewell'd isles—
Boundless in unimaginable spoils,
That earth is stranger to.
Isa. Thou dreamest still:
Thy boyhood's legends carry thee away,
Till thou forgett'st the mighty difference
'Twixt those two worlds—the one, where nature toils,
The other she but dreams of.
Leon. I dream not:
I heard it visibly to the sense, and hark!
It comes again: dost thou not hear it now!
List now, dear Isabel.
Isa. I hear naught.
Leon. Surely I marked it then; I could not dream:
'Twas like the winds among a bed of reeds,
And spoke a deep, heart-melancholy sound,
That made me sigh when I heard it.
Isa. No more!
Thou art too led away by idle thoughts,
Dear Leon; and, I fear me, thou dost take
Too much the colour of the passing cloud,
Filling thy heart with shadowings, that mislead
Thy roving thoughts, already too much prone
To empty speculation.
Leon. I said not wrong:
My spirit trick'd me not my sense was true.
I hear it now again. Far, far off, fine—
So delicate, as if some spirit form
Were for the first time murmuring into life,
And this its first complaining. Hearken now—
Nay, Isabel! thou dost not longer doubt—
Thy ears are traitors if they did not feel
The music as it came by us but now.
Isa. I heard a murmur truly, but so slight,
A breath of the wind might make it, or a sail
Drawn suddenly.