Dreams

[1]

Long since, a Mogul saw, in dream,
A vizier in Elysian bliss;
No higher joy could be or seem,
Or purer, than was ever his.
Elsewhere was dream'd of by the same
A wretched hermit wrapp'd in flame,
Whose lot e'en touch'd, so pain'd was he,
The partners of his misery.
Was Minos[2] mock'd? or had these ghosts,
By some mistake, exchanged their posts?
Surprise at this the vision broke;
The dreamer suddenly awoke.
Some mystery suspecting in it,
He got a wise one to explain it.
Replied the sage interpreter,
'Let not the thing a marvel seem:
There is a meaning in your dream:
If I have aught of knowledge, sir,
It covers counsel from the gods.
While tenanting these clay abodes,
This vizier sometimes gladly sought

Now, through the dusk
With muffled bell
The Dustman comes
    The World to tell,
Night's elfin lanterns
    Burn and gleam
In the twilight, wonderful
    World of Dream.

Hollow and dim
    Sleep's boat doth ride,
Heavily still
    At the waterside.
Patter, patter,
    The children come,
Yawning and sleepy,
    Out of the gloom.

Like droning bees
    In a garden green,
Over the thwarts
    They clamber in.
And lovely Sleep
    With long-drawn oar
Turns away
    From the whispering shore.

Over the water
    Like roses glide
Her hundreds of passengers
    Packed inside,
To where in her garden
    Tremble and gleam
The harps and lamps
    Of the World of Dream.

The beauty of the day put joy,
Unbounded, in the woodland's breast,
Through which the wind,like some wild boy,
Ran on and took no rest.

The little stream that made its home,
Under the spicewood bough and beech,
Hummed to its heart a song of foam,
Or with the moss held speech.

And he, whose heart was weighed with tears,
And who had come to seek a dream,
For a dim while forgot his fears,
Hearkening the wind and stream.

The wind for him assumed a form,
A child's, with wildflowers in its hair;
It seemed to take him by the arm
To lead him far from care.

The streamlet raised a hand of spray
By every rock, and waved him on,
Whispering, "Come, take this wildwood way,
And find your dream long gone."

And he, who heard an...

THE DREAMER

I

He was a Dreamer of the Days:
    Indolent as a lazy breeze
Of midsummer, in idlest ways
    Lolling about in the shade of trees.
The farmer turned - as he passed him by
    Under the hillside where he kneeled
Plucking a flower - with scornful eye
    And rode ahead in the harvest field
Muttering - "Lawz! ef that-air shirk
    Of a boy was mine fer a week er so,
He'd quit dreamin' and git to work
    And airn his livin' - er - Well! I know!"
And even kindlier rumor said,
Tapping with finger a shaking head, -
"Got such a curious kind o' way -
Wouldn't surprise me much, I say!"

Lying limp, with upturned gaze
Idly dreaming away his days.
No companions? Yes, a book
Sometimes under his ar...

Men die...
Dreams only change their houses.
They cannot be lined up against a wall
And quietly buried under ground,
And no more heard of...
However deep the pit and heaped the clay -
Like seedlings of old time
Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world -
Dreams will to light.

The moth and beetle wing about
The garden ways of other days;
Above the hills, a fiery shout
Of gold, the day dies slowly out,
Like some wild blast a huntsman blows:
And o'er the hills my Fancy goes,
Following the sunset's golden call
Unto a vine-hung garden wall,
Where she awaits me in the gloom,
Between the lily and the rose,
With arms and lips of warm perfume,
The dream of Love my Fancy knows.

The glowworm and the firefly glow
Among the ways of bygone days;
A golden shaft shot from a bow
Of silver, star and moon swing low
Above the hills where twilight lies:
And o'er the hills my Longing flies,
Following the star's far-arrowed gold,
Unto a gate where, as of old,
She waits amid the rose and rue,
With star-bright hair and night-...

        --"Throughout the day, I walk,
My path o'ershadowed by vain dreams of him."
                --Italian Girl's Hymn to the Virgin.


Mother, gazing on thy son,
He, thy precious only one,
Look into his azure eyes,
Clearer than the summer skies.
Mark his course; on scrolls of fame
Read his proud ancestral name;
Pause! a cloud that path will dim,
Thou hast dreamt vain dreams of him.

Young bride, for the altar crowned,
Now thy lot with one is bound,
Will he keep each solemn vow?
Will he ever love as now?
Ah! a dreamy shadow lies
In the depths of those bright eyes;
Time will this day's glory dim,
Thou hast dreamt vain dreams of him.

Sister, has thy brother gone,
To the fields where fights are won;
O...

Silently without my window,
Tapping gently at the pane,
Falls the rain.
Through the trees sighs the breeze
Like a soul in pain.
Here alone I sit and weep;
Thought hath banished sleep.

Wearily I sit and listen
To the water's ceaseless drip.
To my lip
Fate turns up the bitter cup,
Forcing me to sip;
'T is a bitter, bitter drink,
Thus I sit and think,--

Thinking things unknown and awful,
Thoughts on wild, uncanny themes,
Waking dreams.
Spectres dark, corpses stark,
Show the gaping seams
Whence the cold and cruel knife
Stole away their life.

Bloodshot eyes all strained and staring,
Gazing ghastly into mine;
Blood like wine
On the brow--clotted now--
Shows death's dreadful sign.
Lonely vigil still ...

All trembling in my arms Aminta lay,
Defending of the bliss I strove to take;
Raising my rapture by her kind delay,
Her force so charming was and weak.
The soft resistance did betray the grant,
While I pressed on the heaven of my desires;
Her rising breasts with nimbler motions pant;
Her dying eyes assume new fires.
Now to the height of languishment she grows,
And still her looks new charms put on;
Now the last mystery of Love she knows,
We sigh, and kiss: I waked, and all was done.

`Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew,
Which still was panting, part of it was true:
Oh how I strove the rest to have believed;
Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!

By a void and soundless river
On the outer edge of space,
Where the body comes not ever,
But the absent dream hath place,
Stands a city, tall and quiet,
And its air is sweet and dim;
Never sound of grief or riot
Makes it mad, or makes it grim.

And the tender skies thereover
Neither sun, nor star, behold -
Only dusk it hath for cover, -
But a glamour soft with gold,
Through a mist of dreamier essence
Than the dew of twilight, smiles
On strange shafts and domes and crescents,
Lifting into eerie piles.

In its courts and hallowed places
Dreams of distant worlds arise,
Shadows of transfigured faces,
Glimpses of immortal eyes,
Echoes of serenest pleasure,
Notes of perfect speech that fall,
Through an air of endless leisure,<...

The children awoke in their dreaming
    While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
    To the heart-light of the hill.

Its sounds and sights were forsaking
    The world as they faded in sleep,
When they heard a music breaking
    Out from the heart-light deep.

It ran where the rill in its flowing
    Under the star-light gay
With wonderful colour was glowing
    Like the bubbles they blew in their play.

From the misty mountain under
    Shot gleams of an opal star:
Its pathways of rainbow wonder
    Rayed to their feet from afar.

From their feet as they strayed in the meadow
    It led through caverned aisles,
Filled with purple and green light and shadow
    For mystic miles on miles.
<...

When through the heat of some long afternoon
In blazing August, on the grass I lie,
And watch the white clouds move across the sky,
On whose azure is faintly etched the moon,
That, when the evening deepens, will be soon
The brightest figure of those hosts on high,
My heart is discontented, and I sigh,
For Autumn and its vapours; till I swoon

Upon the vision of October days
In dreaming London, when each mighty tree
Sheds daily more brown showers through the haze,
Which lends each street Romance and Mystery -
When pallid silver Sunshine only gleams
On that grey Lovers' City of Sweet Dreams.

Isle of Grain, 1916.

        (HE EXPLAINS.)

        Oh, just burning up some old papers,
            They do make a good deal of smoke:
        That's right, Dolly, open the window;
            They'll blaze if you give them a poke.
        I've got a lot more in the closet;
            Just look at the dust! What a mess!
        Why, read it, of course, if you want to,
            It's only a letter, I guess.


        (SHE READS.)

        Just me, and my pipe, and the fire-light,
            Whose mystical circles of red
        Protect me alone with the shadows;
            The smoke-wreaths engarland my head;
        And the strains of a waltz, half forgotten,
            The favorite waltz of the year,
        Played softly by fairy musicians,
     ...

"So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon
That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,
In languid palpitation, half a-swoon
With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills;

"Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale
As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips
Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale
And then as red as any virgin's lips.

"O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased,
- Faint Odor from the day-flower's crushing born,
- Dim, visible Sigh out of the mournful East
That cannot see her lord again till morn:

"And many leaves, broad-palmed towards the sky
To catch the sacred raining of star-light:
And pallid petals, fain, all fain to die,
Soul-stung by too keen passion of the night:

"And short-breath'd winds, und...

In the night I dreamed that you had died,
    And I thought you lay in your winding sheet;
And I kneeled low by your coffin side,
    With my cheek on your heart that had ceased to beat.

And I thought as I looked on your form so still,
    A terrible woe, and an awful pain,
Fierce as vultures that slay and kill,
    Tore at my bosom and maddened my brain.

And then it seemed that the chill of death
    Over me there like a mantle fell,
And I knew by my fluttering, failing breath
    That the end was near, and all was well.

I woke from my dream in the black midnight -
    It was only a dream at worst or best -
But I lay and thought till the dawn of light,
    Had the dream been true we had both been blest.

Better to kneel by your still de...

That was a curious dream; I thought the three
    Great planets that are drawing near the sun
    With such unerring certainty begun
To talk together in a mighty glee.
They spoke of vast convulsions which would be
    Throughout the solar system - the rare fun
    Of watching haughty stars drop, one by one,
And vanish in a seething vapour sea.

I thought I heard them comment on the earth -
    That small dark object - doomed beyond a doubt.
    They wondered if live creatures moved about
Its tiny surface, deeming it of worth.
    And then they laughed - 'twas such a singing shout
That I awoke and joined too in their mirth.

I dreamed of Sappho on a summer night.
Her nightingales were singing in the trees
Beside the castled river; and the wind
Fell like a woman's fingers on my cheek.
And then I slept and dreamed and marked no change;
The night went on with me into my dream.
This only I remember, that I cried:
"O Sappho! ere I leave this paradise,
Sing me one song of those lost books of yours
For which we poets still go sorrowing;
That when I meet my fellows on the earth
I may rejoice them more than many pearls;"
And she, the sweetly smiling, answered me,
As one who dreams, "I have forgotten them."

Last night I saw you in my sleep:
And how your charm of face was changed!
I asked, “Some love, some faith you keep?”
You answered, “Faith gone, love estranged.”

Whereat I woke, a twofold bliss:
Waking was one, but next there came
This other: “Though I felt, for this,
My heart break, I loved on the same.”