we transformed? Silence, darkness, still. I closed my eyes, and opened them again. A pale, cold light became slowly perceptible, stealing through a crevice, and revealing the walls and ceiling of my narrow room. The dream still oppressed me. I went to the window, and let in reality with the morning light. Yet, for days after, the images of the real Honoria and Dalton, my friends, remained separated from the creatures of the vision; and the Denslow Palace of dreamland, the pictures, the revelry, and the magic of the Demon Duke haunted my memory, and kept with them all their visionary splendors and regrets.
Myrtle Flowers
Since Love within my heart made nest,
With the fond trust of brooding bird,
I find no all-embracing word
To say how deeply I am blest.
Though wintry clouds are in the air
And the dead leaves unburied lie,
Nor open is the violet's eye,
I see new beauty everywhere.
I walk beneath the naked trees,
Where wild streams shiver as they pass,
Yet in the sere and sighing grass
I hear a murmur as of bees,—
The bees that in love's morning rise
From tender eyes and lips to drain,
In ecstasies of blissful pain,
The sweets that bloomed in Paradise.
There twines a joy with every care
That springs within this sacred ground;
But, oh! to give what I have found
Doth thrill me with divine despair.
If distant, thou dost rise a star
Whose beams are with my being wrought,
And curvest all my teeming thought
With sweet attractions from afar.
As a winged ship, in calmest hour,
Still moves upon the mighty sea
To some deep ocean melody,
I feel thy spirit and thy power.
