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Dream Moon
David William Paley
Come, moon of star crossed lovers,
Custodian of our youthful daze;
Shine through dark and frosted glass
Where tableaux hide behind the glaze;
Bring to life that frozen stage
To conjure pictures in my soul
Embroidered in our golden age
Now, silvered threads of time's patrol.
A candle flame of untold powers
Brightens night with envied ease
Until the sparkle of the waking hours
Ends, too soon, the welcome tease.
Hold me in your spell, once more,
And trap me in enchanted gleams;
I crave the world I knew before
When slumber had no need of dreams.
Our rapture stretched to fill the sky
But slipped away beyond my grasp
With long remembered, quiet sigh,
As hands were loosed from final clasp
To end the rosebuds of pretence
That wilted soon upon the wind
And blew away with no defence
With all that to my heart was pinned.
Come, sleep, and renew my dreams
Let Queen of Night display her wiles
In soft, nocturnal, gilded beams
That bathe my rest in treasured smiles.
Restore those words that passed for truth,
The promise of my hopes denied:
Those thoughts I harboured in my youth
And still within my soul reside.
So near yet far away
Are visions of the past;
They appear behind a veil
As scraps that do not last;
But let them play until the dawn
For they revive the life I had
Although that gave me cause to mourn
Our future plans, now, long since dead.
A glimpse of her between the trees
As quiet as the lightning flash
Without the thunder;
The flicker of a silent film
That plays a scene of lovers lost
Who broke their hearts asunder;
A ray that glints behind the cloud
To strike the surface of the brook
That flows away with stolen wonder.
Those waves that washed the sands of time
Are now the floods of injured pride
Resounding to the distant chime
Of bells that tolled the ebbing tide.
They left the beach as smooth as stone
When all was lost that had been found
As if the days that we had known
Had been dismissed and love had drowned.
Now, torn from your devoted ministration,
Purer than the care she gave,
Seek, dear moon, a chaste recuperation
In some secluded, sacred cave;
But, even from the deepest vale,
Prepare to gain the soaring heights
And through that darkness, once more, sail
Across the skies with mystic lights.
My tryst is now with midnight glow
That pours upon my sleeping form
Reviving vigils here below
With scenes that life to dreams transform.
Rise up from caverns down below
And bring your lantern from the east
To light the way to long ago
In worlds apart when music ceased.
Fly by renewed across that sea
As bright as charming eyes
But stay aloft and ever be,
Though far away, as near as sighs.
Wake me from my trance
With pictures that you cast
And conjure with her glance
My delusions of the past:
How blossom hung on every tree,
How days were sun and sea was calm,
How love was true and life was free
And all the world so full of charm;
How snow clad peaks were always sparkling,
How songs were sung throughout the evening,
How time forbade the hour of parting
And lovers' vows were everlasting.
© David William Paley
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