01 0! 01 I! 5 2 7 By H-E HARMAN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES u -- miya^iuX ) "At The Gate of Dreams BY H. E. HARMAN AUTHORS PUBLISHING CO. ATLANTA AND SAN FRANCISCO Peering $res, Honbon 1905 Copyright, 1905, by H. E. Harman All rights reserved PRESS OF FOOTE & DA VIES Co. ATLANTA, GA. To HER WHO WAITS WITH ME AT THE GATE OF DREAMS ^ How rarest blossoms by the roadway spring! How do the barren wilds with music ring! How every night new stars of splendor shou-s Within the vaulted blue, where Love is king! At the Gate of Dreams Like idle children at the Gate of Dreams, Piping the times we caught along the road Of half-forgotten days, We sit with folded hands and watch the gleams Of light that fall on yet untrodden ways. Each day we build new castles in the air On ruins left from those of yesterday That fell ere half complete ; Each day comes promise of a land more fair And echoes of new songs more weird, more sweet. For Hope that springs eternal in the soul Fills all the rugged way of human toil With silver-tinted gleams ; Gives every day new promise to unfold And makes us children at the Gate of Dreams. A thousand years and ne er night has paled Before the day, but yonder star unveiled A patient face; a lesson here for thee. If aught in constancy thy life has failed. On the Road to Sleepy-Town On the road to Sleepy-Town As the wondrous sun goes down, Little hands and little feet Wearied out with play complete, Now would stop at every sound On the road to Sleepy-Town. Busy has the whole day been From the dawn until its end ; And the gentle twilight glow, Where the weary feet now go Falls like benediction down On the road to Sleepy-Town. Just ahead the Gate of Dreams Through the stillness casts its gleams Just ahead the hand of sleep Reaches out to touch the cheek Of each little head of brown Longing so for Sleepy-Town. Let me take you to my breast Just this moment ere you rest ; Let me hold the hands so sweet As the daylight goes to sleep, Kiss the droopy eyelids down On the road to Sleepy-Town. How would the stony pathways of the street., Threading the marts of trade, amid the heat Of busy life, become like daisied fields If wand of love should guide reluctant feet. Unrest As sings the brook a-down the meadow ways, Hopeful and glad to join the waiting sea, So all the while we hasten through our days, Sunny and bright, yet never stop to see The flowers that bloom about our hurrying feet, But, like the brook, oblivious of its fate, We hasten on, the coming years to greet Unmindful of the storms that there await. How oft we strain our human eyes to trace Some picture of the future s hidden face; And yet of all who ve gone the silent way Not one has dared a single step retrace. The Silent Way Always before us lies the silent way Along whose mystic sands some ill-wrought day Your feet and mine, Sweetheart, alone must stray. The shadowy valley has its own sad gloom ; There hangs tho unknown mystery of the tomb ; Along its way no sweet-faced daisies bloom. But Lotus trees grow by the silent way, Teaching forgetfulness of pain to those who stray ; Lethe of Life and Life s unfinished play. If you could walk with me, ah ! your sweet eyes Would be as sunshine in its sunless skies, And o er its gloom new hope, new strength would rise. But we must tread alone this silent way, And when you go God grant new light may play Upon its horizon so cold, so gray. The grave may bring defeat and hopeless shame, E en innocence may lose a cherished name; But while we walk this side the silent tomb Nothing can daunt the soul where love s aflame. A Memory An olden tune, the memory of a song, A vanished face, the touch of bow along Responsive strings that wakened all my soul; A memory of your face now gone ! now gone ! Why no slight message from, the grave is found? Why from its hidden silence ne er a sound? Know thou the hand of Lethe guards the way, That those who ve crossed before are Lotus-bound. Farewell Farewell! Farewell! O Sea, O fickle Sea, Keep in thy faithless arms, O keep Him who is all and more than all to me Safe from, thy treacherous deep ! His passioned kiss yet hot upon my cheek, Now thy salt kisses take the place of mine ; O Sea, I envy thee thy burden ; seek The smoothest path for him across the brine. To-night the lazy breezes from the hills Will cool my brow, dreaming of him afar, While thy soft winds, O Sea, the canvas fills That carries him beneath yon patient star. Farewell ! Farewell ! Ye Winds from out the deep, Blow gently as the ev en shadows fall ; And through the silence of the darkness keep The good ship there that carries mine, my all. // in the hush of evening twilight s glows The history of the day no kindness shows, Then count that day as more than lost to thee And pray forgiveness ere the records close. Life s Twilight The evening star and glow of sunset in the West, A mist upon the hill, the hour of rest. A sound of vesper bell across the harbor deep, Parting of dark and day where valleys sleep. And when I say good-bye to face an unseen day, May peace as sweet as this twilight my way. Look you within the daisy s heart and see Some foi*ecast what the future life will be; The faith that glows in every blossom s face Augurs Elysium yet for you and me. A Prayer Thou, who paints the crimson on the rose And gives the meadow daisy heart of gold, Unto my soul so sinned and incomplete Thy will, Thy wish unfold. And when the last sad day shall come And in my soul 1 know that ere the twilight shadows pall The bells for me will toll, Then give me faith to clasp Thy hand and hold Till boatman safely passes o er the stream, And on the part I ve played the curtain fall. So many a life has failed not asking why, So many a soul despaired that did not try, But saddest fate that bars the human way: "To have the wish, but not the wings to fly UNTO MY SOUL, SO SIXNED AXD INCOMPLETE. ^ Some day, somehow, I If now not where or when, Hearts kept asunder who have lovers been I know shall be united, hand and soul And thus shall dwell until the cycles end. If You But Knew I wonder if you ever come this way From out the Bright Beyond, whence you have gone ; If sometimes by my path you do not stray Which since you went I traverse all alone. It seems my love and loneliness would bring Your gentle tread along my road some day When I m a-weary, with no heart to sing, And sigh for comradeship along the way. If you but knew how I have missed your smile, Your tender voice and touch of vanished hand, Your pity would be mine the little while I walk without you in the Shadow Land. When we have anchored on the other shore And Charon turns his boat earthward once more, I wonder will not olden loves awake Regret that Life s half-finished play is o er! O Restless Sea O restless Ocean, like a guilty soul Forever moving, seeking, never still, What is thy mystery and what thy goal ; What is the wish thy vastness cannot fill ? The widowed ones who lonely vigil keep ? The orphaned children at the widow s side ? And victims brave who neath thy treachery sleep Are these thy conscience taunts, O Ocean wide ? If in the after life nothing but ease Shall be our lot beneath the spreading trees, How think you Soul, with lofty aim afire, Shall there in idleness its wish appease ! The Remnant in Gray O sing me a song of the shadowy land Where an army thinned by the frosts of years Marches with trembling foot and hand The silent road of the volunteers: The shadowy way With no light to stay The soul that has never had room for fears. But a little while in the shadowy way And the last will make his final stand, And the soul which courage could always stay Will feel the touch of Charon s hand. Then the shadowy way With no light of day Will see the end of this faithful band. But a little time in the shadowy way : Such a little while and the grave is there ; So while the few who with us stay And walk with us, let every care In the shadowy way With no light to stay Be theirs to the end of the last sweet day. How often Death comes near us on the way, But passes on and gives u-s leave to stay With sweet home idols, while another life, Hopeful, he takes a-down the silent way. I never yet have found a heart so dead But sometimes touched a softened tear to shed, And never yet the Winter fields so sere But some brave plant dare lift its faithful head. Since in the lowly valleys everywhere God scatters blossoms that are passing fair, Think what the vales of Paradise will show- How rare must be the plants that blossom there! God Grant the Years Go Slow God grant the years go slow ; God grant the days be long; And lazily fall the twilight glow, Linger the Even-song. Yon moon that fills the West With its silver-tinted gleams Will quickly sink to rest And leave the world to dreams: So to-morrow s sun will rise Out of the gaudy dawn And fill the Summer skies Then sink and a day is gone. I dread the day, Sweetheart, When I shall kiss your hand Earewell and alone we part And go to another land; For beyond the little way We see with human eye, Of it all we can only say : We live, we love, we die. So I pray that the years go slow; God grant the days be long ; And lazily fall the twilight glow, Sing slowly the Even-song. It argues well that Death must be complete, That every subject bowing at his feet Allegiance gives; or else that country fair Holds willing captives with its music sweet. My Lotus-Land A smell of yonder sea comes to our window high, And a sound of melody out of the darkening sky, For now the parting day says good-bye to the night ; There are little prayers to pray and Love s own fires to light. Now let me hold your hand and look you in my eyes And see that my Lotus-land, under Love s starlit skies, Is where I walk with you in magic hour like this, Where the silvery beads of dew be-star these vales of bliss. How very blue must be the Summer skies That bend above the vales of Paradise! How every landscape, every valley deep Will fill the radiant soul with sweet surprise! On Love s Highway One day Love met me on the June highways, When all the fields were bending in the breeze That brought new promises of Summer days, And tulips bloomed beneath the spreading trees. "Walk thou with me," he said, "along the way : See all the world is glad and so am I, Be my companion and each blessed day Will pass as holy incense to the sky." Almost a score of years have passed since then And Love and I have never walked apart, And sweet June roses fill the way as when We first clasped hands so long ago, Sweetheart. E en yet while snow is still upon the hills And Winter s icy touch the valley fills, G-od sends a pledge of what the Spring will be In golden glory of the daffodils. In the South Here every breeze a richer perfume brings From out the scented woods, where all the while, Tireless from joy, the waiting mock-bird sings : Here every wildwood blossom is a smile. Somehow the daisied fields are whiter still; It seems the rose is redder, and the sky A brighter hue ; here joy and gladness fill Each hasty hour and yet I know not why. There is her love I hold within my heart, Loyal and true, and every joy it brings : We walk the ways that never go apart This may be why the bird so sweetly sings. No matter how obscure the lonely place Where meadow flower lifts its tender face, It sheds a perfume just as pure and sweet As if it grew where gaudy footsteps pace. Goldenrod The Autumn sunbeams come in rifts of gold Across the fields and by the lapping sea; And as I pass, the tufted Goldenrod Bows royally in silence unto me. Though heralder of Winter s coming stay, And soft reminder of the Summer dead, No arrogance of manner marks thy day, Oh, Goldenrod. And on thy crimson head The crown of fulness, of completeness rests, The sunshine of an hundred Summer days; And garnered love that we have won and lost Thy silence keeps. And all the burnished ways Of woodland vale and sedgy-covered fields Are gladdened by thy presence, for the sod Sends up its dearest -offering of the year In thy rich colors, pensive Goldenrod. When lights are lowered in the hall, if we Into the hidden future s face could see And know that but a little span remains, How tender would the good-night kisses be! Dogwood and Jasmine The dogwood fringes woods with white, The leaves new fragrance bring, While jasmine hangs its yellow lamps To light the way of Spring. Yet never blooms the flowers anew But a face comes back serene; The dogwood and the jasmine Both keep her memory green. ^4/i / those who ve anchored, lo, these many days In that fair land beyond this misty haze, I wonder if they watch our restless feet, As here we climb Life s sin-encumbered In Your Room How sacred do the very curtains seem That guard the wistful pathway of the light That fain would enter through your casement there And linger with you. And when gentle night Has strewn the meadows of the Summer sky With patient stars, then every little bloom That shines serene watches in constancy. If but to lose one ray within your room. There is the couch where restful slumber comes To your sweet eyes, and love-dreams chase All cares and worries from your merry heart, And bring the sleeper s smile to your dear face. So when the morn awakes and peaceful night Has softly passed, then from the eastern skies A thousand sunbeams race with message sweet A new day s welcome to your waking eyes. Love knows no caste; the poorest cottage bare Of all that makes life easiest and fair He enters with such royal pomp and pride As if a palace splendor waited there. We Two If we but journey on the same highway, Whether it be by land or placid sea, But one sweet haven waits the closing day Since your dear footsteps there abide with me. Your tender look my evening twilight thrill, Your voice the music of the Summer breeze ; One clasp of hand and lo ! the meadows fill With sweet contentment neath the spreading trees. No voice comes back: the silence of the tomb Is just as faithful as its awful gloom; But this I Tcnow, if there I find you not, No flowers for me in Paradise will bloom. Then You Will Know I feel you never, never yet have understood How tenderly I ve loved you all these years, And never will my heart s full meaning know Until beside my bed the mourner s tears Shall fill your eyes, and kneeling at my side You kiss the lips so white but damp and cold In death s possession, and the hands that toiled So tenderly and long in yours you hold. Then, Sweetheart dear, the olden days will come Like phantom images that haunt the soul In other lands: then every olden kiss And every smile new charm for you will hold. And when the silent lips will answer not Your pleading call, know well that from the land Whence I have gone, I ll love you even more ; Then once for all, I know, you ll understand. SONGS FROM "IN PEACEFUL VALLEY and Other Poems BY H. E. BARMAN REPRINTED FROM EDITION OF 1901 From foot-worn street, where like a dungeon aislo We tread alone the tireless mill of trade, I lift the voice of gratitude and smile And sing to you this lover s serenade. The Carolina Daisies A thousand daisies lift their snowy heads Upon each sun-kissed Carolina hill, And star the meadows with their white and gold To where the flowing tide of Summer rill Eases its pace in lowlands green and wide, Until it finds the river s swifter tide. In other lands I ve seen the daisies bloom, And marked the glory of a day in June ; Have watched the Summer splendor far and wide, When all the world with nature was in tune, But other daisies never yet could thrill My soul like those on Carolina hill. Somehow, in exile, as I see them yet, Those hills seem greener under Summer skies, For there, just she and I, in daisy field I saw the love-light in her tender eyes ; Even yet as constant as the stars above I hold her tenderness, her trust, her love. For swift the years that blight our castles fair Have left me this, and memory reaches far To love s awakening in the daisy fields, Mid hush of twilight, neath the evening star ; So thus I bless you for the love that thrills My soul, sweet daisies of the Carolina hills. Our House of Dreams Almost a score of years Mid smiles and tears, We ve builded, you and I, our house of dreams, And still through all the days, Along the stony ways Love s halo gleams. Sometime the clay was bright ; Sometime a Winter light Fell where we toiled slow with willing hands ; But Love was always there, A gleam of light to spare From Promise Lands. We ve seen the structure tall In hopeless ruin fall And hope s fair star shine out with feeble gleams ; But Love, Sw r eetheart, is true As we begin anew Our house of dreams. In Some Sad Hour In some sad hour I ll hold your trembling hand And plead the passing moments for delay, When one of us must pass beyond the real And one must stay. It matters not to us which it shall be ; Who first shall tread alone the hidden ways ; But God be gentle in that lonely hour To one who stays. A Valentine If white-winged Peri from the golden gate Should ask what gift to me would be most dear From her bright home above, Quick would the thought and quick the pleading be That from her bounteous gifts of land and sea I still might keep your love. So on this day when Cupid walks abroad And shoots his arrows from a golden bow To aid St. Valentine, I only ask that through the years to be Whatever else the fates may hold for me Your love may still be mine. When Daylight Breaks When daylight breaks Across the sky And streaks of gold The day unfold, When darkness fades in mellow light And day-time angels chase the night, Then all my peaceful dreaming wakes To love thee more when daylight breaks. When daylight breaks In dusky hue To kindle diamonds In the dew, And shadows in the valley deep Play hide and seek, and star beams peep With radiance waned, an offering wakes To thee, my love, when daylight breaks. When daylight wakes Across the sky, When starlight fades And moonbeams die, W T hen dusky lashes catch the light From hovering dreams, and all the night Has fled, I wake to bless the fates For thy sweet love when daylight breaks. A Day on the Farm Once More Oh ! give me a day on the dear old farm once more, One such as when a barefoot boy I strayed Among the weeds and tangled clover-tops And listened to the many tunes that played From every tree-top where the feathered throats Sang ceaselessly because the days were sweet. And let it be a day in harvest-time When every wind that swept across the field Was perfume-laden, and when twilight came Then all the glories of the Summer night revealed ; When every prayer was like a lover s song ; Because to live was love and love is prayer. if H " -.. The Carolina Hills Tis Summer, once more Summer On the Carolina hills, And there seems to be a rythm In the whisper of the rills As they come from out the highlands Where the sweetest mosses grow. And go singing through the meadows, With the willows bending low. I ve a sweetheart in the valley, In the cottage over there ; Long I ve envied every cowslip That was growing very near Where she walked on Summer mornings By the hedges cool and sweet, And I envied yonder roadway Long accustomed to her feet. To-day beside the willows, In the meadow cool and deep, I met her on the roadway Where the daisies vigil keep, And a promise she has given Which my soul with gladness fills, And I love you more than ever, You Carolina hills. Oh ! the cowslips in the meadow That I envied long ago, And roadway by the cottage Where the golden daisies grow, I envy you no longer, For I ve won a love that fills My soul, in that fair maiden Of the Carolina hills. Love is the Same Love rules the world complete, Be it for good or wrong, His voice is but the same In sigh or song. The minstrel serenade From darkened village street, Wafted to listening maid, Is love complete. If it be kingly breast Or peasant heart aflame, Heaven touches each alike ; Love is the same. I - . Since Dinah Went Away To-night in negro exile, in dis far-off Northern clime, I dreamed I saw de cabin home of old, Down beside de Southern river, and de eve was Summer-time And de story of my sorrow there is told. De whippo -will was singin and de breeze was blowing slow, De air was full of perfume of de co n, But de shadows fall so heavy and de stars kind hanging low, Cause Dinah, just my Dinah, she is gone. No softness in de twilight since my Dinah went away, No twinkle in de stars dat shine for love, And de dog, he look much sadder and kinder pine away Since Dinah died and went up there above. De cabin it is just de same to others I suppose, The fields as green and other things as gay, But a gloom is in de twilight and a darkness in my soul Since Dinah, just my Dinah, went away. DE CABIN IT IS JUST DE SAME. When Memory Wakes At dawn I woke, and in the misty haze That conies between the waking and the dream I saw her face, as in the olden days, And o er her brow the mellow light that plays Where Love s enthroned. And loi! the tender gleam Of morning star had lost its wonted light, For Fate had touched a long-healed wound at night And waked me, sighing for forgotten days. Perhaps Perhaps in some far-distant Spring-time, When fields are green and woods are gay, When all the air is rich in perfume, I may cross your w r ay. Perhaps in some sweet slumberous June-time Bright and fair with sunny weather, When the whippoor-will is wooing, Our hearts may throb together. Perhaps some russet, crimson Autumn, Rich with goldenrods and gay, Sere and brown in golden beauty, May see our wedding day. ft? THE MISTY HAZE THAT COMES BETWEEN THE WAKIXG AXD THE BREAM." Everywhere In twilight hour the softer blue That glows from Summer skies Is but the borrowed color Of your sweet eyes. The wild rose blush in solitude Beneath the stately pine Is but a type of that which glows On lips of thine. And zephyr low amid the fields Where flower and leaf rejoice, Brings back the tender echo Of thy sweet voice. For Nature has no melody On land or Summer sea That is not set in numbers That tell of thee. TWILIGHT HOUR THE SOFTER BLUE Just Blooming For You To-day in the low green meadows Neath the skies of Summer hue I found a white-rimmed daisy Just blooming alone for you. Patient through days a-dreary, Smiling when skies are blue, Happy in life s full treasure Of blooming alone for you. No worship of priest or prelate Could equal devotion so true As the love of the sweet meadow daisy Just blooming alone for you. There may be creeds more perfect And devotion more lasting and true, But the simple love of the daisy Just blooming alone for you Taught me the sweetness of living Out there under skies so blue ; Just shedding the fragrance of loving And blooming alone for you. And to-day in the perfumed meadow With its flowers of every hue I learned a lesson of worship From the daisy just blooming for you. JUST BLOOMING ALONE FOB YOU. My Silent Guest We sit beside the hearthstone Where the fire-light s ruddy glow Brings back the faded pictures From the realm of long ago, And I smoke my pipe in silence As a star shows in the west, But never a word is uttered From the lips of my silent guest. And I hear as she sits beside me The rustle of silken dress And upon my burdened shoulder A vanished hand is pressed ; The perfume of one sweet Summer Comes back with a memory blest, But never a word is spoken From the lips of my silent guest. I stretch my hand in the stillness If to touch the head of brown, Praying a look of welcome From the dreamy eyes cast down, And a word from the lips so tender That would come as a message blest; But never a word is uttered From the lips of my silent guest. And so we sit in the stillness Alone through the blessed night, Until each faded ember Is lost in the coming light Of the gaudy-mantled morning, And I wake in the hush of dawn To stretch my hands in pleading, But my silent guest is gone. The Recompense of Fate I saw a gardner plant a lilac tree Beside his modest cottage, and for years Returning, saw it grow, but ne er a bloom Appeared to pay him for his cares. But in the after days when he was gone And daisies grew where he was laid away, The lilac bloomed, and through the long spring morn, Blessed cot and garden with its purple spray. By the Old Mill A picture in the wilderness of waste, The old mill stands, untenanted and still ; No life about the doors and fallen wheel, No cottage on the hill. And yet to-day, as by the stream I stood, Which through the busy years has constant been, The meadow daisies bloomed as fresh and sweet As then, Sweetheart, as then. "As then!" You must recall the day When we the daisies plucked beside the stream ; The day we pledged our heart and hand, which still Makes life s sweet dream. For, Sweetheart dear, the moss may cover green The fallen wheel and Winters follow May, But love that woke for us beside the mill Knows no decay. UNTENANTED AND STILL. The Peaceful Valley Here falls a gentle stillness o er the fields, And in the sunshine there s a touch of gold ; Each zephyr brings the echo of a song, And Summer twilights Nature s heart unfold. Here, peaceful home, where cluster orchard trees, Stands far removed from where the busy feet Of passing life go up and down the way : Here not the noisy, but the peaceful meet. There are no struggles here, but gentler ways Of life stretch far along the winding streams ; Here are the echoes of the olden songs, Here come again the faces of our dreams. Ah ! but the touch of her soft, gentle hand And lo ! a stillness falls o er land and sea : Tis Peaceful Valley where her pathway leads, Tis always Summer when she walks with me. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES _P TTflrrnari- 3515 "At the gate H227a dreams." of A 000 925 207 3 PS 3515 H227a