Poetry and Sleep

Poems from South Africa

Published in a South Africa in an anthology 1910

Theodore van Beek

To Marguerite

In the faint flush of dawning, Marguerite,
When the pale flowers wait tearfully the sun,
In that dim waking time when, fond and fleet,

Our tender reveries pass one by one,
Have your fair fancies a stray thought of me,
A transient bubble in the tide of those
Dream rivulets, that ripple to the sea
Where every fond illusion hath its close?
And in the twilight, when the daisies fold
All their soft petals to retain the gleam
And warmth of sunshine in their fearful hold
While they shall rest, sweet Marguerite, and dream,
Ah! then, do you, relenting, sigh to keep
The glow of exiled love in golden sleep?

Sonnet

FAREWELL, my lady, and, bright star, good-bye!
My soul would find its immortality,
My love, uncrownéd, on death's wings would fly
To seek its laurel in Eternity.
Hope softly falls from gardens of the sky,
Whose soil is darkness, and whose blossoms light,
Falls softly in the murmured melody,
Borne earthward by the dewy winds of night.
O winds, that in the kingdom of yon mist
Sing to the flowers and all their secrets bear,
Inform my heart, now while the world is kissed
To listless silence, dwells contentment there?
Do loving dreams inhabit
That Domain,
Where I would end this flight to dream again?

The Dream Lady

SHE comes with the dewdrops clinging
     All radiant to her hair,
And the echoes of her singing
     Trembling everywhere.
With raiment wind-blown flowing,
    And wonder-shining eyes,
And cheeks that have the glowing
    Of dawn-illumined skies.

Her arms outstretched, entreating,
Would fold me to her heart.
Our lips a moment meeting
In vain reluctance part.

Ah! me, how wild the yearning,
The breathless throe how deep
Of rosy rapture burning
In sleep, in sleep!

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