Archie Austin Coates

THE TWILIGHT hangs like smoke in the streets,

Pearly, veiling all the stretches in illusion;

And the new-lit lamps are the glow of hearts

That grope unseeing and unseen.

At the corner a lean young girl offers me lavender,

Offers me youth and romance to hold in my palm, closed—thus.

She gives dreams to the world,

She who knows nought of dreams—

Gives gardens, and waters, and the young shy moon

Hung in the laurels;

Gives the smoke of evening in the willows,

And the complaining stream,

And the lavender’s subtle reawakening of old, dead thoughts.

These, all these she gives, this lean girl—

(A shawl is over her head and her eyes look into the darkness).

What does she know of dreams?

How more happy is she than I who have dreamed,

And may dream no more!