Dreams that are tangled like wild-wood,
A hint creeping in like a hare;
Visions of innocent childhood,--
Glimpses of pleasure and care;
Brave thoughts that flash like a saber,--
Cowards that crouch as they come,--
Thoughts of sweet love and sweet labor
In the fields at the old cottage-home.
Visions of maize and of meadow,
Songs of the birds and the brooks,
Glimpses of sunshine and shadow,
Of hills and the vine-covered nooks;
Dreams that were dreams of a lover,--
A face like the blushing of morn,--
Hum of bees and the sweet scent of clover
And a bare-headed girl in the corn.
Hopes that went down in the battle,
Apples that crumbled to dust,--
Manna for rogues, and the rattle
Of hail-storms that fall on the just.
The "shoddy" that lolls in her chariot,--
Maud Muller at work in the grass:
Here a silver-bribed Judas Iscariot,--
There--Leonidas dead in the pass.
Commingled the good and the evil;
Sown together the wheat and the tares;
In the heart of the wheat is the weevil;
There is joy in the midst of our cares.
The past,--shall we stop to regret it?
What is,--shall we falter and fall?
If the envious wrong thee, forget it;
Let thy charity cover them all.
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