My Maid Of Dreams
By Nora May French
Now foliaged darkness of low hills is
kissed
With threaded pearl slim-white as
maiden’s wrist;
Now with the opal films of earliest
mist
My Maid of Dreams comes to me . . .
Milky fair,
Her face of changeful lights that
shame the morn,
And twin blue hyacinths in her eyes
are born,
Dawn glimmers phosphor-pale upon
her hair.
. . . . . . .
Her face floats up to me thro’ waters
dark,
Beneath the wrinkled clearness whitely
seen;
And filtering shafts of yellow noon-
tide mark
Her gleaming fingers, glimpsed in flick-
ering green.
. . . . . . .
The air grows jewel-red in widening
spheres
From day’s deep heart low burning
in the West.
Sweet airs, blow cool the breath of
earth’s first tears--
Blow me my Maid of Dreams . . .
Ah, dearest best!
Flame-lit thou comest thro’ the silent
land,
My poppy-crowned, dusk-eyes with vi-
sioned night!
Lead me, oh maid, with touch of guid-
ing hand,
To lands unknown . . . to realms of
new delight.
Appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 19, 1900, and was
signed "Nora May French."
-- Pamela Herr