The day is bright, the sun is high,
The air is fresh, the fog is only a sigh.
You look at me. your eyes are bright,
But I can only shy away from the light.
There's ghosts so deep inside me,
A shadow on my soul
And though there's nothing wrong, Love,
I have to let you know...

I'm groping blind, I flail and fall,
I'm just not really part of this world at all.
I look at life, through pain-glazed eyes;
The only word I ever hear is, "goodbye".
But I can dream of your world,
From very far away,
And I can share your joy, Love,
But I can't make it stay.

So here's the truth. I'll do my part.
Just as I shimmer in and out of your heart.
I always try. You know I do,
To hold on tight to my connection with you.
And why you come to me, here,
Please tell me, tell me soon.
Why leave your sunny world, Love,
To come here to my moon?

My love is ethereal, unknown.
Magical, but true.
Genderless and fathomless;
my one and only you.
Androgynous because
It doesn't matter what's outside.
Love lies between the spirit and the mind.
Oh may your heart be blessed to feel the waters of starlight;
or live among a quality of crows, a lonesome night.

Night hovers upon day in clouds ominous.
My city of rain is all silver and gold.
Reflections catch and mystify -
bounce back upon the city's castles of glass.
But it doesn't capture the mountains.
The mountains are sleekly hugging the city,
like black lions ready to leap-
to protect this jeweled treasure..
My city. My city.

Once, for a time I had to live far away.
My life waned and I stopped looking up.
There were no beautiful mountains and castles
where I had to live.
I shriveled like a leaf in autumn
my heart was broken

Somehow I found my way home.
My city cradled me and nursed me
Set me on my feet again.
At sunset I'll go to the castles
And show my face to the mountains.

Red sails.
Sing me sad songs of you.
The Sea. Deepening shades of blue.
Charting my course by winking starlight.
I'm just a stranger out here in the night.
Red sails, promise me love is true.

Daybreak.
Here comes the shining sun.
Blinds me, but fills you with strength and fun.
I've spent a lifetime out in the cold.
I've never known warmth, I've only been told.
Daybreak, to my love, let me run.

Twilight.
I've come full circle now.
Always, hope comes across my bow.
No matter how dark the waters may be;
I'll follow the ways of Love's star-crossed seas.
Twilight. May my dreams you allow.

The wind winds up and smacks
the back side of a newspaper sheet
as it jogs along the gravel of the projects.
There is a cacophony of sounds
but always discernible is a baby's cry
and a young mother singing, ah, la-la, la-la

la-la
an aria.
Crystalline, tentative, sorrowful.
Where did her young man go?
Where do all the young men go?

Sing to me and keen on the white-washed wind
of all the spectacle and horror you have seen.
Bring all the colour back and then rescind
the power given where the powers have been.
Lift up your heads from blank and dreamless sleep
and be uncomfortable but be true.
See all iniquities, though they be deep
and they will come to be revealed to you
for what they are, and then you can be gone-
when those who would enslave you in the night
know nothing of the learning of the song.
They never will anticipate your flight.
This cause may leave a heroine unsung,
but one who'll tell the truth to everyone.

I beg you please, just walk away,
though I can't bear to see you go.
Don't throw your life away and stay;
I beg you please, just walk away,
Why build a dream that's lost its way?
And if you plead, I shall say no.
I beg you please, just walk away,
though I can't bear to see you go.

It wasn't in what I had to say,
It's just that I wanted to listen
in just the right way.
..And your words-
they came
like a
cascading
stream!
and you rose out of them
fresh and clean-
.. and you smiled..
your whole face lit!
It was all that you needed
Just that little bit.
So if you come visit Sweetsilverbird
I promise I'll listen.
You'll always be heard.

The clouds curl over mountains cold and blue
and rains hiss whispers back to thunder's speak;
so all is mist and green and gray of hue
and in this land a child would wonder seek.
Cowichan coat warms her in its magic
with knitted forms of mystic dancing deer.
That she's alone might seem all too tragic,
but in her mind all that she dreams is here.
She holds an abalone , pearlescent grey
And wonders at the colours caught inside.
She lifts it inside out up to the day
and wishes every heartfelt dream applied.
The abalone then vanished all aglow
and in its place appeared the bright rainbow.

Licking lips and tasting purple fingertips,
we paused to sensually share from each.
You,with your mulberries of juicy richness,
and I with naive blueberries without guile.

I feel the glass cool and sleek
as my arm glances against it.
I peer into it, and see a face
that moves with me -
...and so I see it is myself.
Feeling strange, I look deeply,
as if to shake the spell.
I wonder, if I could break the shape of the glass,
would it reveal a self I know much better?
What do I see?
Nothing.
Not happiness, not sadness-
love nor hate.
There is a balefulness,
not a life at all.
This terrifying image
refuses to reflect the fear I feel.
In amber candlelight I'm caught.
If I move beyond the confines of the glass
Will I still be here?

My mother's waters gave me birth
and wrinkled, I came to her arms.
So, wrinkled, will I leave this earth;
beyond its sorrows and its charms.
How sorrowful and soon, the dusk
will not be held back by our cries
and I within this worn out husk
lie down again, and hope to rise.
I dream of other waters now;
where joy and love and comfort are.
Where, to pain I need never bow,
beyond some bright but distant star.
Such afterlife I'll never know,
unless I slip this earth -and go.

I am the poet called, Sweetsilverbird,
but friends all know that I will never fly;
unless it is by every waking sigh
or every dream or wish or written word.
I have a tender heart that's often stirred,
but that's the code that I would live life by.
I could not bear to try to live a lie,
so of all subterfuge I have been cured.
I think because life has been so unfair,
I will not play the games that others play.
Why does a lifetime have to go so fast?
Why tolerate the cruelty that's there?
But I am made of simple human clay
and only live as long as I shall last.

As far back as the middle age,
then, Europe planted for our good;
directed wisely by the sage,
that all the places these trees stood,
would be for pleasure and for food,
for friendship, love and loyalty,
that we be not misunderstood.
Come stand beneath the Linden tree.

The others, one tree would upstage;
brought Slovenia nationhood.
All meetings there they would engage
beneath its branches, when they could,
to benefit the neighborhood
and people came from far to see
the rulers of the public good.
Come stand beneath the Linden tree.

The Linden tree, it will assuage
with blossom, root and bark basswood.
Cure you with a proper dosage
so take the tea just as you should.
You'll be filled with such gratitude-
drunk on flower scent heavenly.
Come circle round this fine softwood.
Come stand beneath the Linden tree.

O prince let joy be understood:
Come see the way we live so free.
Come to our homes, come to our wood
Come stand beneath the Linden tree.

Death is like a vulture
that sits just far enough away,
that I can see it scrabbling closer
through my pain confused eyes.
My pain is like a schoolyard punk
who, with relentless pokes and jeers,
and the deep need to run away,
tortures me.
How can i run away from myself?
Long, long days and days with fractured sleep
leave me brittle and hallucinating.
What is there to fear beyond the pain?
The clanging gong of pain..
The shooting electrics of pain...
The pull and drag of pain...
The tremendous weighted ache of pain?
And if I love you, I will love you
with all my pain.
that's all that's left.

Sometimes I think there is an inner earth,
that spins all widdershins to what we know;
and smoothly from within its spheric berth,
creates enchantments in our world of woe.
I almost hear the distaff and the wheel
and see the golden threads that are there spun;
as if the tapestries of life are real
and magic woven into every one.
The mural of one's life does take its turns;
one section, all bright colours,- next of dark.
The concept of these things within me burns
as I perceive the meaning of the spark.
Our tapestries are dark where we're alone
and brightest where the light of love has shone.

Life seems very simple
in the time of roses;
every colour vivid and bright.
The scent is very heady
In the time of roses.
Every moment is one of sheer delight.
So love while you may,
before the petals fall away
and the world comes apart in your hands.
There is no returning
to the time of roses,
but when the snow
begins to fly
in late fall;
you may remember it all....

My soul is like a dancer
moving through life, graceful;
spinning only in the storming of the wind.
Fleeing flying floating, I make it all look easy,
though the pain inside is my most faithful friend.
A good pirouette makes the whole world soon forget
that I am not as well as I would seem...

My soul is like a dancer,
lost inside the music.
Must it always be a song in minor key?
Come and dance beside me, brighten up the music.
Don't you know that you're the only one I need?

Oh yes, you're the one.
You are the only one.
I knew, before I knew, that I could dream.
To long for, to sigh for
to live for and die for,
till all the lights on the stage burn away,
My Love.

It's dark now.
Another day has passed.
The turmoil of my bed,
like some storm tormented beach,
is empty.
Here in my chair,
sleepless.. ..tortured,
I drag my fingers through my hair
and press my palms against my eyelids;
but the feeling of taut nerves
jangling through me, makes me
flinch, and I begin to rock.
More and more, I wrack
my brain for images or
islands of serenity.
What comfort could I find
when you're not here?
I think back to when
we first embraced.
The sun shone on us then.
But, even as we drew close
that very first time;
I thought I smelled the scent of rain.

Grey insistent rain
is falling on my world.
Sad shriveling old asphalt
shrugs off abandonment
and lies stoic in the cold and wet.
Looking out my window
I see people pass splashing.
Shall I put on my 'winter weeds'
and go amongst them unknown?
Then, as the rain pelts my body,
I can touch my chest and whisper,
"Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."*

But I am not washed clean.
I walk a lonely mile into the wind.
I see mud, and stark branches
and metallic traffic blurring by
and in my commonness I am invisible.
Suddenly a sob bursts from me
from the depths of my longing
and I look around to be sure no one heard.
But if they did, there's no sign.

I walk on to a park close to my home
and stand against a tall majestic tree.
Its branches enfold me
and keep me from the rain.
The roots are so very deep.
I feel my sadness dwindle to the ground
and I am weak, but my heart's less torn.
The storm inside me, like the storm outside has quelled.
Distracted and confused I make my way home.
I sleep to dream of some fabled sun.
Some other world, some other dimension.
Some other me.

Oh come away with me, my precious love,
And lie beneath the candle of the moon.
The stars will all beguile us from above,
while moments slip away from us too soon.
I long to smile into your sparkling eyes
and drink up every aspect of your grace;
to find the places this enchantment lies
And trace the planes and contours of your face.
Oh I have slept and woke a waking dream,
that we should be here by the brilliant sea;
with Love's pavilion just as it would seem,
where you have come to give yourself to me.
For far too many years we've been apart.
Just in the body, never in the heart.

A child has crept inside a secret cave
that lies within a thick hedge on the land.
She'd hidden tears and tried hard to be brave;
now she's escaped the belt, and hardened hand.
Her mind feels addled from her need to run.
Her body jumps each time she hears a shout.
She's frightened she'll be caught out in the sun;
then she'll be dragged back home, without a doubt!
How dared she think she'd slip away and play?
They must have known the moment she was gone...
she'll never leave unseen while it's still day.
How soon the notes fell silent in her song.
She never sang again, her sisters pledge;
she left her spirit safe within the hedge.

Au revoir, I know you'll cry
and so will I, my Heart.
Our sweet love we'll set aside,
we both know we must part.
You don't have to say.
I know that you love me.
Never will we doubt what we feel today.

Sad songs will we sing alone,
while longing for a touch.
I know that you feel the same,
we love us oh so much!
Pacing in my room;
never getting somewhere;
only getting close to the gathering gloom.

Carry me, oh carry me
Through churchyards dark and drear.
Teach your love songs to the wind
and maybe I will hear.
Lover I have lain
Where the world won't touch me
And I'll never tell you, au revoir again

Give me the shearling wool for silky feet;
to ward off chills in this audacious cold.
With eiderdown make all my slumber sweet
and there tucked in, let all my dreams unfold.
On lofty pillows high, let me recline,
to cushion any pain that I might feel
and let a good night's sleep at last be mine,
that I, untroubled, may begin to heal.
Let banshee winds around the casement wail,
as fingers of the trees tap cold and dead,
out on the windows, where the cold prevails.
I will be safely nestled in my bed.
How delicate I must appear to be!
A sister to,  "The Princess and the Pea".

In these dark days the bleak December sun,
rises tired, the more to lie down drear.
By rain, or snow, or chill we are undone
and plod towards the ending of the year.
We hope in the returning of the light;
that soon again there'll be another spring.
Another year is coming into sight;
with dreams and plans and fears that it may bring.
I wish, in every way my joys to share.
I hope for comfort in the times of pain.
In fear, let consolation be found here;
and let love live in all the world again.
To ponder all this, I am yearly cursed;
whenever it's December 31st.

Tears from dusky lowered lids
crystallize and scintillate in the
flames of the guttering candles.

(Walk away, love, walk away!
Kiss my cheek and turn.-
A shattered heart beats, ****** in your breast.)
We love, and yet we return to our 'others'.
We pray we never hurt them. Pray we never break.

I cannot stop this love!  I do not regret it. There!
I only hope that we hide it well enough that it not disturb the innocents...
because, we were innocents too, when it came crashing into our lives.
Bien!  Non Regrets Rien.  Sing the song, and Edith will sing with us. ...
Or Aznavour will.  Or Lara Fabian, or Jacques Brel...
Sing on le chanteur et les chanteurs,  
then come and weep with me.

One day I rode upon an Autumn train.
The sky was slate, the wind was cold and blue.
I saw stark trees and brilliant leaves and rain,
and yet I only thought again of you.
I'd come out on this trip to hide myself.
I thought I'd not be found right in plain sight.
Music I had, and earbuds from the shelf,
I soothed myself with them all through the night.
And when the morning came, all cloudy cold;
all still and sad and broken I became.
For in my heart, I'd suddenly grown old
and all I'd left to whisper was your name.
I droppped my hat down low upon my eyes,
and hid in Love's most distressing disguise.

Perhaps I should have never looked your way.
Perhaps I should have never read your note.
For ignorance is bliss, I've heard them say;
But I, excited, sat right down and wrote.
I told you of the dreamy ways that be.
The things that I have thought and then found true.
And as I told you mysteries of me;
you turned them inside out, and there was you!
But long before my hands caressed your face,
and you reached out to me to touch in kind;
already I had met your ways of grace,
and I had loved the beauty of your mind.
Through years, the magic stays in all we do.
My darling, I am still in love with you.

As ever I have been, I am alone.
This solitude is seen by only me.
As if for my great sins I must atone,
and of my burdens, I can not be free.
I stay away from places lovers go.
I write my heart in poems I have penned,
and carefully arrange my thoughts just so;
to show the world I'm strong, but I pretend.
So as I watch the slowly setting sun,
and shiver as the failing embers die,
I know the loneliness has just begun,
that's when I hang my head and start to cry.
No matter how the winds of life have blown;
As ever I have been, I am alone.

From in the shadows I look back on life,
I dream the past; to when I once have been.
Not as today, where all my world is strife,
but to the days when youth was all serene
How good it was to be alive back then,
to hold a hand or touch another's cheek.
The caverns of my heart were soon a'spin,
and altruistic treasures did I seek.
I spent my patience till it all was gone.
I spent my life till there was nothing left.
The pretty bloom is well and truly done,
I find myself,of peace and hope,bereft.
Of "living to the full", let me now speak;
"To grow old, is not for those who are weak!"

When from my dreams I waken in the night,
and there my seeking arms still find you gone;
I panick, as the visions all take flight;
for I forgot, in dreams, I was alone.
With tenderness I think of you, away;
as if by reaching out I'd touch your star.
But I know I could never make you stay
and so I long for you just where you are.
I know you wish you too could be with me,
and when I wake, you then begin to dream.
For half a world away, you'll always be,
and true love cannot be what it would seem.
The sun and moon still dance on to their rhyme,
in your half of the world, and then in mine.

Time plods on.
The stuff of dreams wears thin,
so I put the stitches in,
and I smile and I am brave.

Pulled each way
I feel my own mortality.
There's less time than there used to be.
Why do I hesitate?

I do not know, I only wait.

I wonder what it is that sends us
looking out to sea,
amidst the pounding breakers
and that blue transparency?

There is a certain colour
that roils up from deep below,
and something's stirred within me too;
from where? I do not know.

From shore, I find that I am
just as troubled in my mind.
I cast my thoughts out to the waves
I know, are far from kind.

A sea within. A sea without.
I am so lost at sea!
My wildest thoughts search for a boat
for both realities.

With feelings tossed, I am confused
and wait now for the tide,
to put me back on solid ground,
there is no place to hide.

Where could I go, if going forth
there only is the sea,
and turning inward, I am lost,
within the sea of me?

All writers write about their love..
There's nothing left to say.
Every metaphor's been used,
all twists of phrase been played.
I think I might just have to choke,
if I read one more line -
from contemporary poets,
who ponder, pledge and pine!
And worse, I'm blindly one of them!
I know no other way.
And I have no excuse except,
I met my love one day.

Throughout my life I've pledged to make you mine.
As if, by wish, this vow would then come true.
So, would I practice words of pretty rhyme,
and, with my heart, would offer them to you.
Oh, how I wish myself to be a poem;
To enter through your eyes into your heart.
For it is there I wish to make my home.
I cannot bear that we should ever part.
But sometimes, when I search to see your face;
I, startled, see you looking back at me!
Could God, in kindness, spare a gift of grace;
or does He smile on simple fools as we?

Still, artfully I do the things I do.
The world might sing if I could speak to you.

No subplot, no agenda, and no guile.
Yes, there are people who are naturally this way.
Blithe souls, who are confused by
subterfuge, willfulness and meanness.
It is not a lack of intelligence.
No, not at all.
Perhaps excessive empathy
and original innocence.
You may think them fools.
Perhaps they are, or maybe blind.
Or do they see too deeply?
Sometimes you'll see one as a child.
See them watching serenely
As the other children play.
But far from spectators, they
often excel at many things.
They see the pain suffered
And wonder why we hurt each other.
The more they see, the more
they are confused.
Still they watch, and try
to comfort and console.
They try to understand-
and never will.
This world is not their home.

Strong memories rise
and emotions clench my throat.
Behind my eyes I see the images.
They spin, one after another,
till they are no longer spectres.
They live again before me as it was.
The deep music plays - reminding my soul
of every ideal and dream.
I feel the wingbeats of some nightbird
and her heart's source.
The hair on the back of my neck rises.
I feel my long hair lifted by the wind.
My body begins to turn and turn in a dervish dance.
Night wind, Take me with you!
I know just where to go.

I sit at the portal day after day.
Gnostic information, news and images
fill my mind, but do not satisfy.
I learn and learn, but I do not grow.
Ghastly pictures of carnage come and go.
So much more than I can ever weep for.
Why is it then, that times of too much tenderness,
make me cry?
What is it about a loving gesture
that breaks the dam?
Perhaps because it is too late..

How is it we end?
Where do we begin?
Isn't it all part
of the circle that we're in?

When you say goodbye
I still hear hello.
You can tell a lie,
but I know what I know.

I know you deny the things we feel,
because to pretend that it's not real
you can somehow keep the pain at bay
And walk away.

Don't you know I see it in your eyes?
I can see right through your cool disguise.
I believe you'll love me, come what may-
Some summer day.

If you don't feel happiness
Don't show the world your pain.
It might be distressing
uncomfortable and grey.
And the comfort that you seek
Is the last thing that you'll get.
No one has your number.

If you don't have serenity
Or a plastic edgy smile
Conversation flattens
You'll be alone awhile.
And if you try to wear a mask
You'll soon be hollow all inside
You can't hide forever.

Won't you?

Will you?
Come be with me for awhile
Come be real with me awhile.
Awhile.

Be expedient
Be upbeat
Be upstanding
Watch your feet
Take your own medicine
Cure all ills
No solicitors
Post no bills
Keep your secrets
Tell no lies
Life's soon over
Time flies

The screen door slammed, and out I ran
into the hot July.
I don't care where I'm going;
whether I flail or fly.
I've gotta be doing something-
or burst for want of a word,
And I'm listening hard for a meaning
but Babel is all I've heard.
I'm slipping past some people
who walk on the hard sidewalk.
I'm squeaking by so slippery,
I don't have the time for talk.
I'm sweet and somersaulting
but no one knows my name.
Would you like to know for certain
that life is not a game?
You're cruising along beside me-
I'm just a part of your dream,
but I'm crying out to reach you
with a primal scream.

In my silent mornings
I contemplate the things you've left behind.
More than your lotion, or your sunscreen;
you've left behind, your breath, your atoms,
..me.

And here you've left your dreams..
Past halcyon days, and breathless futures.
And here I keep them for you safe from harm.
They never dim, though the years go on relentless.

And you are far away, and must needs be.
In your voice I hear the longing to come,
and the chains that keep you there.
In these modern times, we connect everyday.
I see a flame I cannot touch.
I stand before a fire that casts no warmth.
A spectre rises, and I know its name.

When I was very young
my consolation was, The Love.
The love that concealed me.
Walking home alone,
I sang my chant inside my head,
while the other children ****** me.
And Jesus was my brother,
crooning to me in my heart,
when my father's fingers wounded me.
And yet, The Love, shot through the pain,
as I ran to the trees for comfort;
singing my lonely child's keening.
I spent time, long and long
in my wooden leafy refuge.
I saw normal children play and laugh,
but only from a distance.

Sundays, my family went to church.
My sister and I, so pretty with hair so golden,
wore dresses of childish purity.
We sang in harmony with our skin still scorched
by our father's invasions.
There was hell at home, at church, at school,
with nowhere to run but into the arms of, The Love -
that only lived inside my head.
I don't know how, but I knew,
in the arms of the trees,
that there was love springing from the earth,
blowing through the air; caressed by the wings
of the birds.
My only solace were these daily gifts.
So very beautiful.
....and I was beautiful, with this Love
bursting in my heart.

Later, as I outgrew my home, my school, and my church,
I searched for love among those around me.
Many times, I could almost believe
my secret lived in others.
But what they really wanted was to capture my secret.
To hold it to themselves, and they wounded me.
-- and gasping, I crawled out of their arms.
They left my spirit near to death.
Still inside me was, The Love-
cradled inside me, calling me to life.

I don't look for love within the world anymore.
I offer it daily to others and it grows.
I am restored in the oldest church.
In the flowers, and the birds,
and the fresh spring wind.
and if there are more years to be,
I will stay free. - I will stay me,
and worship the only love there is.
Love, .. the one pure light,
that everyday holds back the dark.
God IS Love.

The sky is bleak tonight, Fitzwalter.
I see the morbid crows have cut the clouds.
It's cold, up here amidst the stonework,
with the slotted windows for the watching.
Be careful with your pipe!
though it gives you cheer it may draw the witch!
Sometimes, on the night watch,
some chattering, smattering rhyme
would dizzy dazzle my tired head.
I know it was her, come to draw me out;
to make me dance beneath her moon.
But I held out, did I. .. I did!
I sung my own songs.
Or maybe she sung mine, God help me!
No, don't light the lamp.
Watch for the moor lights
out in the field.
No! I mean,.. instead, watch for their flicker!
For in their flicker, you know well
some creature passes by.
I bid goodnight, Fitzwalter.
I beg just two short hours
and I will up and take your place.
Until then, do not cease to pray!

In blithering torment I shudder.
The pain has built to a deafening roar
of yawning madness.
I huddle as the dry scrabbling claws of
endless agony pry at my mind.
In desperation I cry, but the pain goes on.
No amount of writhing takes me from it.
No position more comfortable;
No bargains with God, heard.
The days wax on relentless
and nights go on and on, sleepless.
My face is an unrecognizable mask
and I forget my meals, my medications.. me.

Suddenly, I am free. I escape to my mind
in a well etched memory.

I am in a treasured moment and I feel no pain.
In my madness, there is you.
The scent of you is as real as I know you to be-
and touching you, I feel such happiness and desire.
I live again the first chaste kisses
and then, thrillingly, the taste of your lips.
Shocks of ecstatic electricity spasm through me,
and I feel us meld our minds kaleidescopically.
Spinning in all this beauty I fall senseless.

At last I sleep. Thank God.
I sleep.

Winter whimpers as it slips away.
Tiny leaf buds tip the filigreed branches.
How fresh the air, and sweet the breeze!
My heart quickens!
I know something is about to happen.
The world whispers secrets in my ear.
My senses are all prickling and alive!
Burst my fetters and let me fly!

On the wide yard of a farmhouse,
where the chickens scratch,
an old hay wagon sits bleaching in the sun;
its underbelly hidden in tall grass.
Lying amidst the blades of green
is a little girl clutching a kitten.
She knows no one can see her there.
How sweet it is to see and not be seen!
No one will scream at her, nor hit her now.
She can sing her sad songs to her kitten.
The kitten sings back with a purr.
Love at last.

The dark fingers of the trees
weave into the ice fog night.
I see the frost on your eyelashes
and the emptiness in your eyes.
How long before you take a few steps
And I can not see you any longer?
Please, love, do not go.
Do not use the words of a stranger-

The light from the street lamp
suffocates, as you turn into mist.
I shiver, and know,
I can't find my way home.

The world will wait on you awhile.
Let your heart be eased, and all around you peace.
Let nightbirds sing you to your rest
And all discord and cares and efforts cease.

My love is sleeping in his tousled bed.
At last his breath comes now in sweet repose.
His face, his cherished face, at last unlined-
As in his dreams, Sleep, all his hopes bestows.

Oh,that I could be Sleep, to give him thus!
To take from him, his cares and give him bliss!
But I can only watch him as he sleeps,
And, quiet, leave him all unknowing, with a kiss.