To One Who Has Suffered Long

I DREAMED that you were well again.
Last midnight, in the gloom,
Suddenly through my sleep I heard
You singing in your room.

It was a little lilting song
With a quick-wrought refrain
Y our heart had caught and captured long
Before it thought of pain;

A rhyme that chanted, ballad-wise,
Of light and lovely years
You knew before your blessèd eyes
Had ever dreamed of tears.

It sounded there, in that sad dark,
Like a bright river, free
From winter bondage— outward set
To the blue, living sea.

The little lightfoot gay refrain
Went singing, fresh and sweet
As a cool wind across a plain
Long sick with summer heat.

And joy, pure joy, it cried to me,
One glad, reiterant word —
The angels broke their minstrelsy
To hear the thing I heard.

My rapture waked me. Old gray light
Was on the hills of men.
I prayed the God of the good night
That I might sleep again.