ONLY A DREAM

Only a dream!

Her head is bent

Over the keys of the instrument,

While her trembling fingers go astray

In the foolish tune she tries to play.

He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes

Never change to a glad surprise

As he finds the answer he seeks confessed

In glowing features, and heaving breast.

Only a dream!

Though the fete is grand,

And a hundred hearts at her command,

She takes no part, for her soul is sick

Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick,—

She someway feels she would like to fling

Her sins away as a robe, and spring

Up like a lily pure and white,

And bloom alone for HIM to-night.

Only a dream

That the fancy weaves.

The lids unfold like the rose's leaves,

And the upraised eyes are moist and mild

As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child.

Does she remember the spell they once

Wrought in the past a few short months?

Haply not — yet her lover's eyes

Never change to the glad surprise.

Only a dream!

He winds her form

Close in the coil of his curving arm,

And whirls her away in a gust of sound

As wild and sweet as the poets found

In the paradise where the silken tent

Of the Persian blooms in the Orient,—

While ever the chords of the music seem

Whispering sadly,— “Only a dream!”