I lay last night and heard the ceaseless rain
Drip in soft rhythm from the ragged eaves
And musically play upon the leaves;
The rose-vines trembled on my window-pane,
And lost from some wild tempest on the plain
Spent winds came dying up the quiet lea.
Across the tide-lands ebbed the shivering sea,
And knowing the midnight hour was on the wane,
Sighing, I turned and slept, and, sleeping, dreamed. . . .
Straight thro’ the dark thou camest, as of old,
Trembling, yet eager; strong to claim thine own;
The same pure rapture in thy deep eyes beamed.
I ran to meet thee. . . then a clear bell tolled,
And I awoke―forevermore alone!
“A Dream” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).