Poems of Sentiment and Imagination/Dreamings of Life
DREAMINGS OF LIFE.
I slept, and in my sleep I thought
That I was in a dream—
A dream so earnest and so strange,
That even now I deem
'Twas more than the vague phantasies
With which our slumbers teem.
I thought 'twas night—O such a night!
A night so strangely fair,
When the stars smile down so angel-like,
And through the lucid air
The moonbeams poured in a shining cloud
Like a mass of golden hair!
The shadows of the summer trees
Made columns dark and long
Across the brightly sparkling turf,
And their leaves kept up a song—
A song they'd learned of the dreamy brook
That sung as it flowed along.
Oft have I heard that tune at night,
As it came from the waving wood,
When the breeze was reveling 'mong the boughs,
And stirring the solitude;
And it ever filled my youthful heart
With a wild and yearning mood.
I dreamed that I stood in a spot most like
A place that I had seen,
With its waving wood on a moonlit bank,
And turf of dewy sheen,
And its intertwining canopy,
With the moon and stars between.
The river that glided at my feet,
And trilled its murmured tone,
Had a sound like something I had heard
In the blissful years agone;
And I marveled how I reached that place,
Yet never the change had known.
The long grass waved from the water's edge,
And dipped in the silver tide;
And its shadow laid on the glittering waves
As the lashes of some young bride
Do droop o'er the clear, dark, shining well,
Where her timid feelings hide.
I thought 'twas strange I was standing there,
Alone with the midnight moon.
And a shuddering fear thrilled through my veins
As I listened the night-wind's tone;
And as it sighed in my unbound hair,
I smothered a whispered moan.
But the vision that rose in the yellow air
Held my shuddering senses still;
I could not speak, or breathe, or stir,
But a damp and deathly chill
Bound with its icy grasp my heart,
That it could not even thrill.
A ghostly form, with silver hair
Flowing down to his feet,
And a face so dark, and withered, and wild,
And eyes that I dared not meet—
So stony and cold they looked on me
From brows as white as sleet.
"Shall I show thee life?" he spoke at length,
But I answered not for fear;
And a mocking smile played on his face,
So withered, and wild, and sere;
And I closed my eyes for a moment, till
That look should disappear.
But when I looked, in its wonted tide
My blood flowed fast and free;
And almost without knowing why
I laughed in my careless glee;
And naught at all of the strange old man
Could my happy vision see.
I seemed to stand on that moonlit bank
With a form on either side,
Of friends I had known in girlhood's days
Ere either the world had tried—
Of a girl in her earliest loveliness,
And a boy in youth's first pride.
Her arms were twined about my form;
I looked into her eyes;
The light that shone in their starry depths
Was as clear as summer skies;
And her face had that pure spirit-look
That any sin defies.
Her dark curls laid upon my neck,
Her clear cheek to my own,
And her gentle breath perfumed the air
Like hyacinths half-blown;
While words of sweetest poetry
Wreathed with her music tone.
The proud boy marked her soft, low words;
His tones grew wild and deep,
And I felt the heart so near my own
More passionately leap,
And the warm blood to her rose-leaf cheek
In a swift torrent sweep.
And still we three held converse there,
Beneath the midnight moon,
Nor thought that the night was waning fast,
And the stars would very soon
Grow wan and pale in the misty air,
As if sinking in a swoon!
The scene was changed. In a vaulted hall
I sat amid a crowd,
And round me pressed an eager throng
Of the gifted and the proud;
And all to the might of eloquence
In quiet rapture bowed.
I almost hushed my breath to hear,
Yet strongly my heart beat;
And I dreamed it would be bliss to live
Forever at his feet,
At the feet of him whose eloquence
Was so strangely grand and sweet!
But a sudden thought dashed on my brain,
The thought of that night in June,
When a boy stood on the river bank,
Beneath the midnight moon;
And I knew the son of fame was he
I had known in years agone!
Then I thought of the girl with the dreamy eyes,
But ere my thoughts were shaped,
I seemed to stand beside a bier
With sable velvet draped;
And a man knelt there in agony,
Of which no sound escaped.
And I seemed to read the hidden past
As it were from out a book;
I knew full well why that strong man
In such mute anguish shook;
And I shrunk away from him, nor dared
Upon his grief to look.
He was the boasted idol-shrine
Round which a nation bowed;
And the wild acclaim of worshipers—
The blinding incense-cloud—
Had hidden too long the idolater
Now folded in her shroud.
Another change—and a noble man,
With brow of kingly pride,
Trod proudly through a glittering throng
With a fair girl by his side;
And I knew by her snowy vail and wreath
She was a youthful bride.
I remembered the fair and shrouded form
I had seen upon the bier,
And almost without knowing why,
My spirit quailed with fear;
And though I strove to be at ease
I could not see or hear.
Once more I stood on that moonlit bank,
And that old man gazed on me,
And his stony eyes shone with disdain
As he asked "Wouldst thou now see
Another page in the book of life—
A page filled out for thee?"
I could not bide that old man's smile,
It shone through the yellow air
With such a wild derisive gleam,
And his eyes had such a stare—
A stare so frozen and icy cold
That surely they could not glare.
Again my curdling blood stood still;
I struggled to even moan;
The old man smiled a pitiful smile,
And I sank into a swoon;
Nor dreamed again, 'till from my sleep
I was wakened by the tune
Of the night-wind in the waving wood,
And the brightness of the moon.