A WAKING AND SLEEPING DREAM.
[See the Illustration in the Frontispiece.]
Night is the sick man's day,
For the soul wakens as the body fails.
I had told weary hours; but, with the hush
Of midnight, my last memory of pain
Had still'd before a thought of sudden brightness,
And, like one rising upon spirit-limbs,
Rose I, and wander'd with that Thought, away.
Oh, the blest truants that we are, when Sense,
The Master, is too weak to call us in,
And, loos'd as if the school-time of a life
Were over, with its spirit-checking toils,
We to the fields stray—following where'er
Fancy, the vagrant, calls us!
Went by the hours, that with such heavy heel
Come last in the slow vigils of the strong,
And the dawn broke. Call'd in from spirit-straying,
I knew again that I was weak and ill,
Beginning on another day of pain;
But, with a blessing on my Thought-(whose track,
Far thro' a wilderness untrcd before,
It seem'd that I might tell of with a pen
Wing'd with illuminated words)-I slept.
And presently I dream'd. In conscious sleep,
I knew that what I saw was but a dream.
The curtains of my bed, I knew, the while,
Tented me round; and on a couch beyond
Lay a lov'd watcher by a dimming lamp;
And I remember'd her-and where I lay-
And that the hour was morning—yet I saw,
As if my dim room were dissolv'd in air,
The vision I shall paint you.
The Thought that I had follow'd in rapt waking,
And, of whose sweet revealings unto me,
I long'd, in glowing words, to tell the world-
That Thought I saw-clad in a breathing shape,
And, like a sylph upon an errand sped,
Prone for an arrowy flight, and thro' the air
Cleaving its way resistless. The cleft wind,
Revealingly, to that symmetric Thought
Press'd its transparent dress; and beautiful-
Oh, beautiful as are the shapes divine
Which woman's form makes possible to dream—
Lay its impulsive outline on the air.
I kindled with the pride that it was mine,
The glory of its beauty-of my soul
The easy effluence, moulded with a breath,
And giv❜n, a rich gift, idly to the world!
And carelessly I sped it on its way—
But-turn'd to look on it once more.
A cloud, now, lay aback between its wings,
Drawn by its motion onward-a small cloud
That, from the night-envelop'd world below,
Seem'd lighted by the half arisen moon.
I saw it, not as one upon the earth,
But as they see from Heaven. And as, again,
I watch'd that Thought-(irrevocably sped,
Without a fear that it might turn to ill,
Without a prayer that it might bless in fleeing)—
Behold, all calmly with it, on the cloud,
Rode a wing'd angel with an open book;
And-of the hearts it mov'd—and of the dreams,
Passions and hopes it call'd on as it flew—
Of all it gave a voice to, that had else
Slumber'd unutter'd in the Thought-ruled world—
That angel kept a record.
Said a voice near me, "shalt that record hear;
For, in thy using of that gift of power,
SPEEDING WHAT THOUGHT THOU WILT ACROSS THE WORLD,
Thou speak'st with the pervading voice of God,
And, as thy sway of the world's heart, will be
The reckoning with thy Maker. Human Thought,
Oh poet, lightly may take wondrous wings.
Thy careless link binds words to travel far.
But oh, take heed!-for see-by dream-revealing-
How Thoughts of power with angels go attended,
Outfleeing never the calm pen that writes
Their history for Heaven!
Upon my wind-stirr'd curtains, and I woke.
And this had been a dream. 'Tis sometimes so:-
We dream ourselves what we have striv'n to be,
And hear what had been well for us to hear,
Did our dreams shadow what we are.
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