New York Nocturnes and Other Poems

by Charles G.D. Roberts

 

THE IDEAL

 
To Her, when life was little worth,
   When hope, a tide run low,
Between dim shores of emptiness
   Almost forgot to flow,—

Faint with the city’s fume and stress
5
   I came at night to Her.
Her cool white fingers on my face—
   How wonderful they were!

More dear they were to fevered lids
   Than lilies cooled in dew.
10
They touched my lips with tenderness,
   Till life was born anew.

The city’s clamour died in calm;
   And once again I heard
The moon-white woodland stillnesses
15
   Enchanted by a bird;

The wash of far, remembered waves;
   The sigh of lapsing streams;
And one old garden’s lilac leaves
   Conferring in their dreams.
20

A breath from childhood daisy fields
   Came back to me again,
Here in the city’s weary miles
   Of city-wearied men.