Only A Dream

Only a dream!                 Her head is bent     Over the keys of the instrument,     While her trembling fingers go astray     In the foolish tune she tries to play.     He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes     Never change to a glad surprise     As he finds the answer he seeks confessed     In glowing features, and heaving breast.     Only a dream!                 Though the fete is grand,     And a hundred hearts at her command,     She takes no part, for her soul is sick     Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick, -     She someway feels she would like to fling     Her sins away as a robe, and spring     Up like a lily pure and white,     And bloom alone for HIM to-night.     Only a dream                 That the fancy weaves.     The lids unfold like the rose's leaves,     And the upraised eyes are moist and mild     As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child.     Does she remember the spell they once     Wrought in the past a few short months?     Haply not - yet her lover's eyes     Never change to the glad surprise.     Only a dream!                 He winds her form     Close in the coil of his curving arm,     And whirls her away in a gust of sound     As wild and sweet as the poets found     In the paradise where the silken tent     Of the Persian blooms in the Orient, -     While ever the chords of the music seem     Whispering sadly, - "Only a dream!"