Poems (Whitney)/Siesta

by Anne Whitney

SIESTA.

 The old apple tree,
  Noblest on the hill—
 Takes me in its arms;
There I lie a-dreaming,
 Dreaming at my will.

 Birds and birdlings chirping,
  Think not I am there—
 While they trill wild notes,
Think not of my dreaming
 In the scented air.

 (Pray you do not mark!
  I pray you shut the doors
 On your fine brains—be sure
'Tis only foolish dreaming,
 Unfit for wits like yours.)

 Leaves glance light above—
  Boughs 'beneath me yield,
 Moving like long waves,
Or golden rye a-dreaming
 On a July field.

 My eyelids softly closing,
  Rarer sights I see;
 While all the outer music,
All the gay leaves' dreaming
 Seem to follow me.

 Feeling, scarcely thought,
  Old sweet grief and mirth,
 Like gold fruit are hanging,
'Mid green boughs of my dreaming,
 Far above the earth.

 Hope and bird-eyed fancy
  Midway chirp and sing;
 A rainbowed mist of music—
A hum of cherubs' dreaming—
 The sound of blossoming,

 Peace, a deeper peace—
  Joy, a fuller tide,
 Like swans on glassy waves
Come gliding down my dreaming,
 Gently side by side.

 Say you, little wren,
  That our life of mirth
 Distances a king's,
As the sky in azure dreaming
 Distances the earth?

 Well said!—Noisy world,
  Custom's weedy throng,
 Here I give the go-by—
For they match not in my dreaming
 With your wing and song.

 Hearken, little bird!
  When God, round your heart
 Laid those mottled wings,
He gave you heavenly dreaming
 For your life-long part.

 I, my wild translator
  Of that upper bliss,
 On my doubtful pinions,
Fanned through some strange dreaming,
 Ere a dream like this.