• POETRY.
DEAD-MAID'S-LAND.
AND have you seen that mystic clime, With poppies pale bestrewn,
Where lavender and musk and thyme Breathe soft below the moon P
For always it is moonlight there,—
No gaudy blooms expand .
In the white ray, on the sweet air That blows through Dead-Maid's-Land,— But blossoms blanched, or faintly blue, Or those, you may have seen Where an unfinished blush peeps through The gentle veil of green: And gold that scarce attains to gold, And purple half-forgot, Like vivid visions, midnight-told, By day remembered not!
These are the playthings, these the toys, That fill each leisured band,— These innocencies are the joys That people Dead-Maid's-Land.
Dear buds that know no sunny beat, Chary of scent and hue, The virgin-ghosts with whom you meet, Are surely one with you!
There sit the slender sprites, along Green lawns and winding ways, Or wander slowly with a song Into the moonlit haze; Some, careless maids with no regret, Frolic and laugh and sing: And other some, newcomers yet, For earth still hungering, Lay their smooth heads on mother-knees, And sob away their care: And some beneath the solemn trees Kneel in a trance of pray'r.
And unto some, delight has birth,—
With hand cool-clasped in hand, Phantoms of lovers left on earth Are haunting Dead-Maid's-Land.
And some—these happiest—sway and croon, And fold upon their breast, With little tender slumber-tune, A baby dream to rest. Strange melodies the breezes waft, When daylight sounds are still, Low notes, as though some girl had laughed, Flicker, and float, and thrill; West of the moon, east of the sun, The lily-portals stand, Through which that web, of music spun, Drifts out from Dead-Maid's-Land.
MAY BYDON.
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