Poetry
The Pool
TILE night is very still ; and quietly now
Lie all those dark ephemera of thought Wherewith the busy day was occupied.
Nought is his mind now but a gleaming pool Upon whose marble face a moonlight shines And shakes not. Floating there, in the silence,
Are naiads—less, yet more, than real _dreams Fluctuant on the tides of memory.
Quieter grows the night, bolder the moon, And they more luminous on the dark pool.
See, now they lift their hands to greet him. One
By one they climb on to the sandy rim
And come to him. As whispering leaves in a hedge, As music when the violins are hushed, Is their speech ; and the secret things they tell- Belong he knows not where . . .
Then wakes within him the predestined truth : Once these were hands he touched with lover's touch, Once these were eyes that looked with love upon him, Once these were dust with him on the dusty earth.
But now, ah 1 living or dead it matters not
They stir with lovelier life than ever they lived—
Here in his mind they stir, here in the pool Of his quiet mind ; to climb through the level waters And come to him, lifting their shining hands In welcome, and telling him on soundless tongue More than was ever told on mortal breath,
C. HENRY WARREN.
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