Do you remember, from the dim delight
Of long ago, the dreamy summer night,
So full, so soft, when you, a sleepy child,
Lay in your faintly star-light room, and smiled
Responsive to the laughter of the folk
Who sat upon the porch below and spoke
From time to time, or sang a snatch of song?
Do you remember still across the long
Years’ way the perfume from the flower beds
Wafted in gusts of sweetness, as the heads
Of drowsy blooms were shaken by the wind?
And wistful, do you still hold in your mind
The myriad doings of the summer night?
The tree-toads, and the cricket’s chirp, the flight
Of fireflies, those burglars of the dark,
Who flash their lantern light, then veil its spark;
The breathless calling of the whip-poor-wills,
A sobbing screech-owl off among the hills?
Then — cobweb visions over dreamy eyes
Do you remember how in mystic guise
Sleep ’gan to wave her mantle o’er your head?
Now far, now near, the shadowy folds she spread,
Slow, and more slow, until at last they fell
And wrapt you in their slumb’rous heavy swell —
And so, close gathered into happy rest,
Sleep caught you fast against her fragrant breast,
Then set her velvet pinions wide in flight
And bore you through the wonder of the night.