A DREAM SHAPE

With moon-white hearts that held a gleam,

I gathered wild flowers in a dream,

And shaped a woman, whose sweet blood

Was odor of the wildwood bud.

From dew, the starlight arrowed through,

I wrought a woman's eyes of blue;

The lids, that on her eyeballs lay,

Were rose-pale petals of the May.

I took the music of the breeze,

And water whispering in the trees,

And shaped the soul that breathed below

A woman's blossom breasts of snow.

Out of a rose-bud's veins I drew

The fragrant crimson beating through

The languid lips of her, whose kiss

Was as a poppy's drowsiness.

Out of the moonlight and the air

I wrought the glory of her hair,

That o'er her eyes’ blue heaven lay

Like some gold cloud o'er dawn of day.

A shadow's shadow in the glass

Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass:

And, thinking of it now, meseems

We only live within our dreams.

For in that time she was to me

More real than our reality;

More real than Earth, more real than I —

The unreal things that pass and die.