Poetry and Sleep

Poems from South Africa

Published in a South Africa in an anthology 1910

Herbert Price

When

WHEN through the dark I hear the fall
Of waters low and musical,
When stars in wonder gaze and blink
On silver dews the roses drink,
When o’er the hills a veil of light
Comes softly flowing through the night,
Then aeons of old Time appear
But tiny twinkles of a year.

When in a garden scented sweet
I loiter with reluctant feet,
And heart that loves the flowers so
They blush into a warmer glow,
Each breathing all its soul away
Into the fervid air of day,
Then birth, and life, and death assume
The fragrance of a sweet perfume.

When from a mountain top alone
I see the season’s vernal zone
Stretch gleaming green o’er vale and hill,
When mists come up and slowly fill
The shaded hollows of the world,
And dreamy visions are unfurled,
Then all the universe to me
Is but a thought’s epitome.

When from his bald and windy height
The eagle sweeps into the light,
And curving in majestic rings
Holds all the earth beneath his wings,
And from his azure vantage sees
The vast creation’s mysteries,
Then all the sordid frets and schemes
Of men are but delusive dreams.

When all the hills like emeralds glow,
And winds in fragrant silence go,
Wafting from the valleys deep
Scents which there invite to sleep,
But along the mountain side
With a wakeful spirit glide,
Then all the veins of life desire
The impulse of the season’s fire.

When children in a joyous rout
Make all the hills together shout
With crystal echoes such as move
The very heavens to aches with love,
And hosts of flowers around their feet
Rejoice to be so bright and sweet,
Then all my soul is like the sky
When not a cloud is sailing by.

When on the ocean’s moaning breast
I lie in wonder’s heart arest,
And hear her cosmic music roll
As from some far and magic goal
Enchanted voices of applause
Float up from visionary shores,
Then all the waste and drift of things
Is covered by love’s brooding wings.                                              

When softly from the breathing earth
I see the grasses having birth,
When buds appear and flowers soon
Enrich the golden afternoon
With scents and colours sweet and bright
Till life is full of new delight,
Then hope, awakened from her dream,
Renews again her sheeny gleam.

The Lion's Dream
(An  incident  of the Zoo)

Now he recal1eth his triumphant days,
And fervid throes of equatorial fire
Thrill through his frame, till re-aroused desire
(His dream so shows him all his desert ways)
To lap the scented blood of what he slays,
Lifts  him  upon  his feet;    a lurid  ire
Burns in his eyes, a shaggy horror stays
His mane erect in aspect grim and dire.
His eyes that are the mirrors of his dream,
As slowly from their deeps the vision fades
Lose all the light wherewith they blazed and shone,
His limbs relent, and all the savage gleam
Droops in his mane to ever gloomier shades,

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