III.

My whole life long I learned to love;
This hour my utmost art I prove

And speak my passion.-Heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may-I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they.

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE DREAM.

I.

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity; the last,
As 't were the cape, of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of

men

Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array-so fixed,

OUR life is twofold: sleep hath its own Not by the sport of Nature, but of man:

world

A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality;

And dreams in their development have
breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;

These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath;
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beau-
tiful;

And both were young-yet not alike in
youth.

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,

They leave a weight upon our waking The maid was on the eve of womanhood;

thoughts;

The boy had fewer summers; but his heart

They take a weight from off our waking Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye

toils;

They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of Eternity;

They pass like spirits of the past,-they
speak

Like sibyls of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not--what
they will;

There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his
sight,

For his eye followed hers, and saw with
hers,

Which colored all his objects;-he had ceased

They shake us with the vision that's gone To live within himself; she was his life, by, The ocean to the river of his thoughts,

The dread of vanished shadows-are they Which terminated all; upon a tone,

so?

Is not the past all shadow? What are they?

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,

Creations of the mind?-the mind can make And his cheek change tempestuously-his

Substance, and people planets of its own

With beings brighter than have been, and

give

heart

Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share: A breath to forms which can outlive all Her sighs were not for him; to her he was

flesh.

I would recall a vision, which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

Even as a brother-but no more; 't was

much;

For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him-
Herself the solitary scion left

THE DREAM.

235

Of a time-honored race.-It was a name

Which pleased him, and yet pleased him

not-and why?

IV.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream: Time taught him a deep answer-when she The Boy was sprung to manhood. In the

loved

Another. Even now she loved another;
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream:
There was an ancient mansion; and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned.
Within an antique oratory stood

The Boy of whom I spake;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro. Anon

He sate him down, and seized a pen and
traced

wilds

Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was

girt

With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay,
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping
side

Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds

Words which I could not guess of; then he Were fastened near a fountain; and a man

leaned

Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,

His bowed head on his hands, and shook, as While many of his tribe slumbered around;

't were

And they were canopied by the blue sky-
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,

With a convulsion-then arose again;
And with his teeth and quivering hands did That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.

tear

What he had written; but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet. As he paused,
The lady of his love reëntered there;
She was serene and smiling then; and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she
knew-

V.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream:
The Lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better. In her home,
A thousand leagues from his, her native
home-

How quickly comes such knowledge! that She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy,

his heart

Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched; but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced; and then it faded as it came.
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow
steps

Retired; but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles.
passed

Daughters and sons of Beauty. But behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?-She had all she

loved;

And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affection, her pure thoughts.
He What could her grief be?-she had loved him
not,

From out the massy gate of that old Hall;
And, mounting on his steed, he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold

more.

Nor given him cause to deem himself be

loved;

Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream:
The Wanderer was returned-I saw him

stand

Before an altar, with a gentle bride;

Her face was fair; but was not that which
made

The starlight of his Boyhood. As he stood,
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering

shock

That in the antique oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced-and then it faded as it came;
And he stood calm and quiet; and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own
words;

And all things reeled around him; he could

see

Not that which was, nor that which should have been

Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream:
The Wanderer was alone, as heretofore;
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation-compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was
mixed

In all which was served up to him; until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons; and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment. He lived
Through that which had been death to many

men;

And made him friends of mountains. With the stars,

And the quick spirit of the Universe,

But the old mansion, and the accustomed He held his dialogues! and they did teach hall, To him the magic of their mysteries; And the remembered chambers, and the To him the book of Night was opened wide, place, And voices from the deep abyss revealed

The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the A marvel and a secret-Be it so.

shade

All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny-came back
And thrust themselves between him and the
light:

IX.

My dream was past: it had no further

change.

It was of a strange order, that the doom What business had they there at such a time? Of these two creatures should be thus traced

The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts Ask me no more: the moon may draw the

Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable, and unperceived

Of others' sight, familiar were to hers.

And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise

Have a far deeper madness, and the glance

sea;

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take

the shape,

With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape. But, O too fond, when have I answered thee? Ask me no more.