THE ISLAND OF A DREAM To T., M. P.

THE street is dark and drear to-night, The rain comes rushing down; In gusty red the lamplight flares Within a nimbus brown. God pity now the homeless ones Within the cruel town! So dense the gloom, so dark the night, So thick the driving rain, No star compassionate can view The city in its pain; Yet, lulled within the firelight’s glow, My vision comes again. * * * White sails across the harbour-bar Speed, speed me fast to sea. Know ye not in the Blessèd Isle My comrades wait for me? And I would greet in old, old tryst The golden company. O’er the great waters crystalline So speedily we sail, The red gold of the living sun, The dead moon’s silvery pale, Flash on mine eyes from hour to hour Till lo! the Isle I hail. I stand upon its shining sands, My comrades round me press. After the years of sordid care, The cark of fate’s duress, I come into my own again In life’s young eagerness. Once more I meet the men I loved In the dear days long syne, The tried and chosen brotherhood Who once were kith of mine. The oath of the old fraternity Is still a pledge divine. We talk again of ardent days, The glow of sparkling nights, Tourney of wits in revelry And jousts of smiling fights, Grasping with grave-eyed happiness The zest of past delights. Night blooms with many a myriad stars Over the Blessèd Isle; The haunting scent of its orange-groves Exhales for mile on mile; The sapphired pearl of its sleeping bay Is rippled with a smile. The feast is laid in the banquet-hall, The guests are summoned there, Joyous but low the minstrelsy Thrills in the rose-tinged air; The wine is red as the Flame of Life, In the days when the world was fair. With laughter and song we find again The heart of the Secret Rose: We rise to the toast of the Brotherhood: The Gates of Pearl unclose. * * * The fire is out, the dawn has come, How chill the morning blows!