The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

THIS is the land of dreams: these waving woods
And the dim sunlit haze that hangs on all
And the clear jewels of the murmuring stream;
These flowered nooks through which the bird-notes fall,
Like silver Spring-showers,—here sweet Silence broods,
And here I dream.

107

Prone in the shadow of the flowers I lie
And watch the lizards glitter through the grass
And listen to the tinkle of the stream:
Unmindful of the weary hours that pass,
Here do I lie and let the years go by:
I dream and I dream.

Life and the world forsake me in the calm
Of these enchanted woodways, green and still,
Wherein the very sunlight's wavering gleam
Sleeps on the lazy ripples of the rill
And in the mist of the droopt flowers' faint balm
I dream and I dream.

There is no future in these glades of ours
Nor any whisper of the stern to-morrow;
Life is a woven thing of a sunbeam:
Nor in the grass is any snake of sorrow,
Nor comes remorse anigh where 'mid the flowers
I dream and I dream.

Here are the bird-songs neither glad nor sad:
Sleep drones in every note of their delight;
Not even throstles with the olden theme
Of tender grieving sadden the pale night;
But veiled is all their song, as 'twere they had
Dream within dream.

Here are no roses of the sharp sweet scent
Nor the sad violets' enchanted breath,
Nor jasmines cluster by the slumbering stream;
But the drowsed hyacinths with umbels bent
And the gold-hearted lilies of sweet death,
Flowers of a dream.

108

I know not if life is with me or how
I come to lie and sleep away the years:
I only know, but yesterday did seem
Sad life amid a swarm of sordid fears
And hopes. Then came the god of Sleep—and now
I dream and I dream.

There swell faint breaths to me of earthly jar,
As 'twere a wild-bee humming in the thyme,
And the dim sounds of what pale mortals deem
The aims of life come back like olden rhyme
Upon mine ears, whilst, from the world afar,
I dream and I dream.

I hear the sweep of pinions in the air
And see dim glories glitter through the skies,
As if some angel from the blue extreme
Of heaven strewed gold and balm of memories
Upon the woods and the dim flowers that bear
Spells of a dream.

There hover faces o'er me oftentimes
Of lovely women that I knew of old,
Set like a jewel in a golden stream
Of fairest locks; and from the aureoled
Sweet lips there swell faint echoes of old rhymes;
(I dream and I dream.)

And sweet white arms enclose me as I lie,
(Still do I lie and fold me in a sleep);
Yea, and faint-fluttering tresses, all a-gleam,
Fall down about my brow full tenderly
And wind me in a glamour soft and deep.
(I dream and I dream.)

109

Yet is there nothing that therein is rife
That for the world forsaken makes me sigh,
More than the empty motes of a sunbeam.
Unheeding them, in the dim dream I lie;
Far from the flutter of the wings of Life,
I dream and I dream.

When wraiths of pleasure are so true and leal,
Why should I seek for flesh and blood to love me?
Who shall tell what things are and what things seem?
I am content, unquestioning, to feel
The folding of the shadow-arms above me.
I dream and I dream.

There are two shapes that reign in the clear air,
Holding the hours with their alternate feet:
Under the lindens and along the stream
The twin shapes walk and make the noonday sweet
With their clear songs and their aspéct most fair:
(I dream and I dream)

The one of them is white and lockèd with gold
And the sea's blue is cloudless in his eyes;
And therein comes and goes the glad sun's gleam,
When in the morn the sloping shadow lies
Of his fair form upon the golden wold:
(I dream and I dream)

But dark the other is and sad as night
And his eyes purple as the evening sky,
When in the midnight falls the silver beam
Of the pale moon upon the flowers that lie
And faint for the excess of their delight:
(I dream and I dream)

110

The fair shape's songs are joyous as the day;
The other's sad as is the violets' breath;
And of their lovely semblance, this I deem,—
Life is the name of him that is so gay;
The name men know the other by is Death.
(I dream and I dream.)

The fair shape holds the day for his domain
And wakes the linnets with his golden song,
Clear as the jewelled tinkle of the stream;
The dark shape walks the cloistered night along
And weaves descants of a divine sweet pain.
(I dream and I dream.)

But in the middle day the twain do meet,
And hand in hand right lovingly they go
Along the wood-ways in the noontide gleam;
Mingling their songs in a sweet chant and low;
And where the grass is pressed by their twin feet,
I dream and I dream.

Nor are these all that haunt the wooded bowers:
There is another shape much sought of them,
That something of the twain to have doth seem;
For there is life in his sweet eyes' blue gem
And death upon his tender mouth's red flowers.
(I dream and I dream.)

Walking alone, along the wood he goes
And plucks the flowers, to breathe their scent and tell
The issue of the things that he doth deem,
And idles with the ripple's babbling swell,
Murmuring sweet ditties that he only knows.
(I dream and I dream.)

111

Him do the twin shapes seek by hill and wood,
He flying ever with an arch despite
Along the meadows in the sight's extreme;
And when upon the fringe of the spent night
The broidery of morning is renewed,
(I dream and I dream)

They touch him often; yet but seldom win
To make him walk with them the path beside,
Along the flowered marges of the stream;
And often joyous Life hath grieving sighed
And Death hath sorrowing sat beside the linn,
(I dream and I dream)

For that he would not come: but, comes the wight,
Then do they crown him, as their lord, above
The twain, with laurels and an anademe
Woven out of sun-gold and the moon's delight;
And so I know that the fair shape is Love.
(I dream and I dream.)

These all are but the figures of a sleep,
Being too fair for aught but the dream-world,
Being too lovely to do aught but seem;
And so I will to lie and them to reap:
In these dim hazes of the night impearled,
I dream and I dream.

Come Death,—it is but night more sweet and deep;
Come Life,—it is but morning come again;
Come Love,—it is but the first Spring's sun-beam,
With the sweet primrose-scents of rapturous pain;
For Love, Life, Death, are but the terms of sleep.
I dream and I dream.