 | A Dream |  |
175
THE BURNING POEM'S SOUL.
Long ago when he was younger, longing grew a poet's soul,E'er he sated poesy's hunger on his early labor's roll
Of the verses he'd collected, dreary dreamings of his heart,
Voicing feelings unprotected by the cultured world of art.
He had labored, oh he'd labored t'ward his ideal's lofty height,
Which to heart seemed nearly neighbored; but his soul was dark as night.
Who was he of lofty learning, who could tell him he had done,
That the poem of his yearning was completed, glory won?
Suddenly a superstition flashed across his fevered brain—
Conjurers sure can give nutrition for this seething mental pain,
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With their eyes of crafty tragic, sure can point the index hand.
Thus his hopes he started rearing on a dreary skeptic art.
Little of the danger fearing e'er it bled his brooding heart.
To the mountains wild and cragged he began his hopeful flight,
For the sooth of woman ragged with a face of ebon night.
All his labor in his writing, he had placed beneath his arm,
And his soul o'er omen fighting, nerved him to impending harm.
Somber drew the eve's declining, clouded darkly sank the sun,
And his soul was in him pining e'er the winding path he won,
Where the lovers hopeful wander, 'mid the homes of bats and owls,
For prophetic conjurer ponder where the wild beast haunting prowls.
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For this woman ever feigning gifts of marveled second sight.
Darkness outward lowered gloomy as he gained the conjurer's cave,
An apartment strange and roomy echoing loud with tremor grave.
Scarce a moment was he under, 'neath this dusky conjurer's roof
E're a crashing peal of thunder thrilled his soul with ample proof,
That forboding evil hovered in dark phantoms of the night,
While within the fire smothered, threw a low fantastic light.
All within was silent, lonely—“Where art thou my prophet crone?”
Night-wind gave him answer only in a wailing weird moan—
'Twas a moment he stood dreaming, then he sought the cavern door;
But the rain and night-wind screaming drove him back inside once more—
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Odors death-like seem to thicken, o'er his wildly dark despair.
Suddenly the poet rising dropped his poems on the floor,
Then in hatred deep despising did he scan his labor o'er—
“Trash, oh trash! Thou voice of beauty, thou it is who brought me here,
Thou the art of grace and duty dragged my soul to quake and fear.”
Thou I worshiped, never ceasing, working e'er to raise thee higher—”
Then he cursed them, wrath increasing, flung his poems in the fire.
Slowly blazed the paper burning, then it leaped in lurid flame,
And to shape of mortal turning, stood a woman staring blame
Wildly from her eyes that flaming searched into the poet's soul,
Then reproach more scornful blaming burned his heart like living coal,
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All his blood within him chilling gushed back frozen in his heart.
“I'm the soul of poem burning, though thy doubt did know it not,
Thou didst have thy heart's great yearning in a poem thou forgot.
Fool, oh fool is mortal being with a soul to do and doubt,
Ever in the darkness fleeing, only hoping for without.
I shall burn within thee ever, 'till my soul shall come once more.
From thy soul that thou didst sever in thy doubting days of yore.”
Suddenly the poet feeling hands of dampness clutch his own,
Turned in frightened languor reeling to the dusky prophet crone.
Driven from the night's wild storming, had she gained the hut too late,
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“Self and angels, demons, devil all didst doubt e're I fortold,
Soon thy work to dust shall level, I'd have told thee for thy gold.”
Then a moan came from the blazing, of the soul before his eyes,
She with moan and gestures dazing leaped to lightning in the skies,
And this moan he heard forever—wildly broke he to the night.
In his garret works he ever for this flame of lurid light.
While within he feels the burning of the poem he has lost,
In his heart there is the yearning, think it back at any cost.
| A Dream | |