I WILL be happy if but for once: Only help me, Autumn weather, Me and my cares to screen, ensconce In luxury's sofa-lap of leather! Sleep? Nay, comfort -- with just a cloud Suffusing day too clear and bright: Eve's essence, the single drop allowed To sully, like milk, Noon's water-white. Let gauziness shade, not shroud, -- adjust, Dim and not deaden, -- somehow sheathe Aught sharp in the rough world's busy thrust, If it reach me through dreaming's vapor-wreath. Be life so, all things ever the same! For, what has disarmed the world? Outside, Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame Nor want, nor wish whate'er betide. What is it like that has happened before? A dream? No dream, more real by much. A vision? But fanciful days of yore Brought many: mere musing seems not such. Perhaps but a memory, after all! -- Of what came once when a woman leant To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall. Truth ever, truth only the excellent! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HUMAN LIFE by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE THE GREEK AT CONSTANTINOPLE by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES SONNET: 9 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE MISPLACED SYMPATHY by CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS THE VIOLET by ALEXANDER ANDERSON |