We thought them dead, and they are but asleep.

In moments when the heart is most at rest

And least expectant, from the luminous doors,

And sacred dwelling place of things unfeared,

[Pg 31]

They issue forth, and we who never knew

Till then how potent and how real they were,

Take them, and wonder, and so bless the hour.

Such gifts are sweetest when unsought. To me,

As I was loitering lately in my dreams,

Passing from one remembrance to another,

Like him who reads upon an outstretched map,

Content and idly happy, these rose up,

Out of that magic well-stored picture house,

No dream, rather a thing most keenly real,

The memory of a moment, when with feet,

Arrested and spell bound, and captured eyes,

Made wide with joy and wonder, I beheld

The spaces of a white and wintery land

Swept with the fire of sunset, all its width

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