I do not know why I dreamed last night
Of a woman long since dead,
Of the sunken eyes in their clear youth light
And the pale lips warmly red.
I remember once as a tiny child
I played in a panelled room,
And a lady's face on the dark wall smiled
From out of the dusk and gloom.
The painter had given a painted smile
To the lips for a grief disguise;
But the eyes refuted the artist's guile
With the sorrow of living eyes.
For many a year had her portrait hung
On the line of the wainscot wall,
While the saddest songs of the earth were sung
Hers were silent in it all.
I wonder why I should dream last night
Of a woman long years dead.
Her eyes were clear in the dreamland light,
Her lips with their warmth were red.
I looked long in the crystal glass to-day
With eyes too tired for tears,
And the dead one's lips smiled back at me
From out of the buried years.
First published in The Queenslander, 11 June 1898
