Mm ■KHH ■IS in m IHonm ■■:::-: ■■v ■ Glass Pf)2*6ftft- Book .H8 &\e> The House of Dreamery In Two Parts By DENTON J. SNIDER ST. LOUIS, MO. SIGMA PUBLISHING CO. 210 PINE STREET. 1918 Transferred from Copyrii?-h x nm >« Press of Nixon-Jones Printing Co. St. Louis, Mo. Content* PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD The New Palace 8 Democracy 9 World Pain , 10 For Whose Sake 11 The House of Dreamery 12 The Dreamer 13 The Conflagration 14 Macrocosm 15 Armageddon 16 The Universal Crucifix 17 Halifax 18 The Spokesman 20 Confessional 22 Shrift 23 Question 24 Answer 25 The Double Sun 26 "Resolve 27 The Two Hearts 28 The God of Suffering 30 The Fated One 31 The Red Muse 32 The World's Hent , 34 The Nameless Pain 36 The Pain's Name 37 The Talking Sphinx 38 Bad Dreams 40 4 CONTENTS Behemoth 41 Earth's Tragedy 42 Earth's Prayer 43 God's Pain 44 The Paternoster 46 The Time 47 Sentenced 48 Lament 50 What It Means 51 To Hamlet 52 The Judgment 54 Who Am I ? 56 God's Spell 57 The Bereaved Mother 58 Donna Dolorosa 59 L 'Immortelle 60 Arisen 61 Day and Night 62 A Sigh 63 Wordless 63 The New Law 64 Haunted 65 The Sun's Eefusal 66 The Old Sun-clock. 67 Renewal 68 Panorama 69 Eden 70 Thought to Image 72 Self Winder 73 My Book , 73 The World's Hospital 74 Relief 74 CONTENTS 5 The New Sun 75 The Combat 76 The Helper 77 Lesser Pain 78 Orison 79 The Time's Healer 80 Earth's Wound 81 My Dreams 82 Providence 83 Day 84 Night 85 By Day and Night 86 Future 88 Past 89 Prometheus Bound 90 Prometheus Unbound 91 Dream's Universe 92 Shadows - • 93 God's Tear 94 My Duet 96 Bhyme 's Condolence 97 Decree 98 Love 's Triumph 99 PART SECOND— THE DREAM LIFE Beyond 102 Blessed Pain 103 A Dream Within a Dream 104 Evanishment 106 The Season's Picture 108 The Old Story 110 6 CONTENTS Pain's Gospel Ill The Falling Star 112 Re-united 113 Returning Star 114 Now and Then 115 Self -resurrection 116 The Duet 119 Dirge 120 The Seraph 122 Recessional 124 The Beldames Three 126 The Two Voices 128 The Giant 130 The Reliever 132 The Face of Pain 133 Spring 134 Roses 136 Like Through Like 137 A Tear 138 The One 140 Nature 's Keynote 141 Vernal Mood 142 Autumnal Mood 143 Pessimism 144 Optimism 145 Restored 146 Memory 147 Image to Thought 148 Psychology 149 No More 150 Last Judgment , 152 The House of Dreamery $art Jftrsit THE DREAM WORLD Let me but roam abroad in sleep Myself I then shall see, And in the God's own bosom peep My immortality. — 7 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE NEW PALACE My night builds a palace of sheen Lit up by another world's sun, My day shall rebuild it of words That the house of my dreams get done. So now I plan them a home Where we together shall dwell, And every word of my writ I mould of my dream's eerie spell. This palace builded of measures, Whose architect though I may seem, Is his to indwell as the master Who awake is living my dream. — 8 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. DEMOCRACY Sleep is the mighty democrat Whose triumph comes to set all free; Him I install as President Within my House of Dreamery. I swoon into my underworld To find the Goddess Liberty, Who bans my pains and breaks my chains Within my House of Dreamery. Sleep levels all men to one dream Of Earth's democracy, And gives them equal life and love Within my House of Dreamery. — 9 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. WORLD PAIN How comes it that I am pursued by a pain Yet know not the why of my ill ? No misfortune to me has stricken my life, But this heart-bleed follows me still. "When I slip out of my dream with the morn, I feel on my spirit a weight Which is never of me, yet is mine to upbear — The crush of a worldful of fate. I sense all the universe now to bleed Hit with a terrestrial blow, And I this little old corpuscle, man, Must share the whole eosmical woe. 10. PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. FOR WHOSE SAKE To-night my world-pain took a voice Which to my heart's cry spake: "This mighty cataclysm of blood — Thou shoutest, For whose sake? "Calamity restores the bond Which all success doth maim } I know your suffering by mine, Our torture is the same. "In war's mad shriek of agony Which circles the whole Earth, Pain's universal brotherhood Is having now its birth." — 11 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY When I lie on the lawn at noon And listen to the bumble-bee, His little buzz will jar the door Of my pearl House of Dreamery. I slip into the workmen's forge, A thousand sledges smite I see, Each hammer hits some hidden bolt To ope my House of Dreamery. At once the Dreams dart out to me In fetches far of fantasy, I time them all in music's mode To tune my House of Dreamery. If I but thread the thronging street, A million noises jostle me; Still every noise flows to a note Which floods my House of Dreamery. — 12 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. But when I lay me on my lounge And will myself a dreamer be, I build a world of Love within My House divine of Dreamery. THE DREAMER It is my love to live a dream And fleet the world around, I long to be and not to seem, To Time no longer bound. A stranger to this life I roam, For when I wake, I seem; But I return to my right home When I can be a dream. — 13 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE CONFLAGRATION Our world held an orgy Satanic "Which bedraggled me all through the night, And I fell to a dream volcanic Which boiled me in tears at the sight. Up rose a burning mountain Out of a human breast, Whose throbs shot a lava fountain That burnt its way from the crest. The eyes burst a double crater That never ceased to flow, Their ruddy rivers rolled greater While fiercer became their glow. The sides were layered of tinder, Whose flames rose tongued with sighs, And wherever would fall a cinder Broke out the tristfulest cries. — 14 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. But as those flames waxed hotter They wrapped it around to the top, The mountain did tremble and totter, But the furnace never could stop Until the whole Earth-ball was whizzing "With all its five zones on fire ; Good Providence too seemed blazing In Heaven upon the world's pyre. MACROCOSM I feel without a fault of mine An ever-prowling pain, Which crawls into my day with dawn As I wake up again. It throbs the macrocosm's bale, Wherein I am a part, Which with its penance overflows This microcosmic. heart. — 15 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. ARMAGEDDON The Earth entire turns Satan "With monstrous jaw- Devouring his own children In world-wide maw. This planetary Dragon Through space now toils "With all damned Armageddon Caught in his coils. I would not let him loop me E'en in my dream, But whooped up all my courage To one last scream: £ I dare thy noose, God's serpent Round Eden curled;" He, hissing me his frenzy, Let drop the world. — 16 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. THE UNIVERSAL CRUCIFIX The crucifixion is not now confined To single small Jerusalem, Nor is to-day the Christ, the son divine, Born only in one Bethlehem. To-day the valley of Jehosaphat Is all the land, aye all the sea, The judgment seat hangs all around the globe- The convict, all humanity. The whole world has become now Golgotha, The charnel home of man who died ; This Earth-ball is the Hill of Calvary Where all the race is crucified. Upon that universal crucifix Both you and I suspended seem, But resurrection of this death-done world Is what gives substance to our dream. — 17 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. HALIFAX (December, 1917) My fellow-dreamer came in tears, Nor would his lips relax From shouting in my sleepy ear: O hapless Halifax. To be the sufferer of war Far from the battle line, To feel the judgment of a world — Why should the lot fall thine? The body whole of this mad Earth Against itself turns foe, And thy small nook, O Halifax, Has felt the fated blow. On all this wounded planet's face Thou art one little pore, Which, hit by chance, Halifax, Doth bubble out thy gore. — 18 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. We make thy sacrifice our own Through Charity's deep plan, Thy loss we hope the world's far gain- The brotherhood of man. So dream we daily to undo The time's demonic acts, Though Providence may seem a fiend To thee, Halifax. 19 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE SPOKESMAN The Earth's great soul moaned out a pain Into this little soul of mine, As its huge whirling body tossed Around upon its circling line. That body spouted streams of blood Throughout all Heaven's far-lit space, It heaved deep sobs, but could not speak A word from its great orbed face. Still in my little human soul I heard the mighty Earth-soul pray; Though wordless flowed its speech in mine, I understood what it might say: "Thou hast the power of the word "Which I am fated not to sing Unless thou lend to me thy voice To syllable my suffering, — 20 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. 'Build thou to speech," the Earth-soul sighed ' ' The grandeur of my pain, And wreathe around my weeping sphere Thy melancholy's strain." Then lent I to the great Earth-soul Of me the petty piping note Which soon swelled up and swathed the globe, Sung from that huge terrestrial throat. So mightily did roll that voice Up to the stars and down the years That I could hear within my dream The farthest music of the Spheres. — 21 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. CONFESSIONAL My heart-bleed has set in And will not stop Until I take my quill To word each drop. The world-pain sleuths me still By some Judge sent As to a spirit damned In punishment. I suffer with the Earth For her blood spilt — I share her motherhood, I feel her guilt Until I shrive myself To my shrift's Lord, For my confessional Is this throbbed word. — 22 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. SHRIFT I love that old word shrift From Heaven lit; In its deep Saxon heart It means a writ Which absolution brings That I may thrive, And Verse is my High Priest Who doth me shrive. Thou, Poesy, art but jingling With words adrift, Unless in thy soul singing I hear thy shrift. — 23 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. QUESTION tell me now, my rhyming Sir What is your House of Dreamery? 1 wander through its mystic haze And I can never find the key. If you but turn to tune your line Unto the lilt of poesy, It straightway swoons off to a strain Which croons your House of Dreamery. And if you seek to chime my hour Into a stream of melody, The music runs at once away Floating your House of Dreamery. A ghost obsesses your pen's point To prick this world's reality; Can you not charm some sun inside Your nighted House of Dreamery? ^-24 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. ANSWER For mine own me I make my rhyme, Though I would make it for thee too ; I can by it outdare my doom When in my House of Dreamery. Tuned to my verse I long to lull My surging heart compassionate Which thrills responsive to each wail Shrieked from the whole world 's blow of fate. The reddest throb from sorrow's stab I rock into a rhythmic strain, That it may give to thee my balm When out thy heart doth bleed my pain. — 25 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE DOUBLE SUN I live along the Sun's high course, He lights me out the skies And tells my times upon the earth, I set with him and rise. For me he smiles the pretty day, And frowns the ugly night, His kisses may caress or kill — A blessing be or blight. The sun is double in his deed His sheen is love or hate ; But mine it is to make him one, And so outdo his fate — 26 PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. EESOLVE A double sun rose on my dream, A black one and a bright; Each claimed to own a half of me And double was my sight. The two would never work as one — Man's curse and yet his prayer; It doth me light, it doth me smite, Life's giver and life's slayer. I feel them in me strive atwain, Yet I shall make them one; For I must be within myself More than a double sun. 27 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE TWO HEARTS The seams of Earth's old face Run red to-day, And the whole globe is gashed In gory fray. I dreamed a naked heart About to burst, It swelled and throbbed and leaped As if accursed. Into that swollen heart "Was plunged a knife. Which cut it to the core, To let its strife. Dark are the gouts of blood That from it run, And to a measure wild Fall one by one. — 28 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. Each drop in sombre hue Leaps into rhyme, And verses made of blood Gush forth in time. The heart now rests awhile Freed from its pain, But soon it swells anew — Must flow again. Thou, stricken heart, throb out Thy newer part, To me thou hast become The whole Earth's heart. 29 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE GOD OF SUFFERING I dreamed myself an offering Which I alive did give, To the Great God of Suffering That I through him might live. I prayed that God : " ban me not, Complete my holy vow, With thine to link my higher lot That I reborn be Thou." I dared in him to sink away And not to be to seem; But in that spell I could not stay, I soon fell out my dream. Still back to it I often flee, And sing my old refrain Which wings me up to ecstasy That I be God again. — 30 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. THE FATED ONE I saw the Earth-ball droop last night As if a mighty head Which from its body was shorn off While through all space it bled. I, welling sorrow, asked that head: "From yours you stray unmated, And roll at random in the void — Why thus decapitated? Then out its wound it gurgled words : "My tragedy now scan: Of millions of my fated men I 'm the one fated man. ' ' — 31 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE RED MUSE Within this madhouse of a world I heard the Muse to sing, "Who dares with this red time tune red Her strains of suffering: "Whatever I may throb in rhyme My speech seems always hit, My vocables roll off my tongue As if by demon smit. "My very thoughts from me fall hurt In what I have to say; My tongued sounds are slit in twain With the time's fang to-day. "Let me but sing a soulful strain, It shrills a twanging slash, And hisses with the dragon Earth Whose jaws I hear now gnash. — 32 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. 'And if I dare once fall asleep My very dream runs red And streams in gashes from a heart As if my shadow bled." Muse, thy tensely ehorded words Are keyed up to thy theme, And I am hut the trembling scribe To letter thy red dream. 33 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE WORLD'S HENT My old wound boils to-day as when In fight I fell afield ; So many years it has been hush, As if forever healed. But now it breaks at once apart "With all its former pain, A sharp and sudden splash it bursts In throbs to bleed again. I know not why this should be so, My body is not rent, Most happy in myself I feel, Yet by that wound am shent. Of friend or kin I have no loss, No sick or dying love ; Still that old stroke stabs back at me, As driven from above. — 34 — PART FIRST.-^-THE DREAM WORLD. Once life was red in blobs of blood, To-day my soul is rent, And from afar beyond the sea I feel the world's hid hent. Of this great bleeding bodied Earth I live one little cell, And, aching with the sphere's far hurt, I sing my wounded spell. — 35 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE NAMELESS PAIN There is a pathos in my breast Which seems the world to rive And break the human heart in two — I live not, though alive. I wonder what the cause may be That saddens me this morn; Just when I wake and see the sun, I would I were unborn. I wonder what it is to-day That wrings me with despair, No longer can I love my hope, To live I hardly dare. I have no ill of mine own lot, And I am not bereft Of what life 's sweetest ties can give ; And still my heart is cleft. — 36 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. But when I dip in it my pen Through which its throbs I drive, And make them trickle down in words — Again I live alive. THE PAIN'S NAME My body's pang it neither is, Nor is it that of me, Although myself it too inspheres In its totality. A crucifixion now it seems Of the whole universe, This passion new is cosmical, And cosmical the curse. Then let the name be also new For this huge pain new-born ; Cosmalgia is the snake I feel Bite through my soul forlorn. — 37 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE TALKING SPHINX The old Egyptian Sphinx Broke granite lips Which crumbled at my feet In little chips That he might speak to me His cryptic word Which all Nile's centuries Had never heard: "The time doth bid me tell My dream of stone, For this whole human pain Is just mine own. "Till now I froze in rock My sorrow's tears; But hark! they melt to words To reach thine ears. — 38 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. "The mute colossus I Of suffering Now ope my mouth through thee My pain to sing. ' ' Thou, little blob of man, Behold in mine Pain's immortality By God's own sign." — 39 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. BAD DREAMS I dreamed I saw the Serpent old About our planet whorled, To take his tail into his mouth And hold up our round world. But suddenly in wrath the beast Its ringed tail spat out And with it fell our sphered Earth Down to dark Hela's rout. Into mine own dim underworld That serpent coils his creep, With many a hiss and snap and glare He wakes me out my sleep. I grope dark corners of myself To ban such monsters' throng, But in my House of Dreamery They too somewhere belong. — 40 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. BEHEMOTH I dreamed of big old Behemoth, Monster of holy saw, Who welcomed once the prophet lone To his palatial maw. But now the bigger Behemoth Gapes for this girdled Earth, Which he doth swallow easily As he did Jonah's girth. But biggest dream I Behemoth With future task to follow, His final most Titanic job Is just himself to swallow. — 41 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. EARTH'S TKAGEDY I heard her groan to-day — Old Mother Earth : "I would my life unwind Up to my birth. "Let me go back to thee, And be undone Into a shred of mist Of thine, Sun." The Sun said to the Earth: "I am too old, I have turned back myself, Am getting cold. ' ' Then sobbed sad Mother Earth "Now I know why On my life's sphere is writ My tragedy." — 42 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. EARTH'S PRAYER The world is cut to threads by day But is made whole by night, I hear the wounded Earth now pray "0 snuff me out the light. "By day I wander a lost soul, By night comes rescue soon, Oh that the knell of day would toll And into night I swoon ! "Now would I sleep a million years My wounded sphere to heal, And soothe my boiling sea of tears Till whole again I feel." 43 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. GOD'S PAIN A Pain just come to-day- Is sealed divine; It hails from God's own heart, And also mine. A suffering new I feel And so do you, This universal pang I never knew. Time's greatest novelty Is just this pain ; Its Oceanic wave Who may restrain? This war is new, 'tis said, War universal, too; So likewise is its woe Which tides this suffering new — 44 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. Flowing from the Beyond An infinite, The universe is stabbed In mundane fight. And I beneath that shoek Must also cringe — I, this atomic point Feel with God's twinge. — 45 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE PATERNOSTER The Paternoster wrathful rose And took his judgment seat Above a million starry spheres Which twinkled at his feet. He summoned to his awful eye Our little planet ball, The little sinner gan to weep Hearing the Judge's call: "The example now I make of thee For all my stellar world, The farthest star shall fear thy fate Lest it be Hellward hurled." Of the whole universe thus judged The Grand Justiciary, "Whose word at once flew to the deed Fulfilling his decree. — 46 — PART FIRST.— THE BREAM WORLD. The Paternoster painful rose And left his judgment seat Amid a million starry spheres Which trembled at his feet. THE TIME The Earth is now one crucifix On which I dream the One, the Man ; A universal Calvary Eeveals the new Creation's plan. I hear the Universe's clock Knelling to Time her node supreme, And the great soul of Time herself Is now fulfilling her long dream. — 47 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. SENTENCED Old Father Sun I heard in a dream Summon his daughter the Earth Into his presence creative again, For he minded to take back her "birth. He would overmake her a little sun-flake Somehow as she was long ago; But still he shone a sorrowful word Whose fervor illumined his woe: "Since the aeon when thou wert born of my loins Many millions of years have sped, Methinks, Oh Earth, I must knead thee anew, It were better that thou be dead. "Thy quarrelsome ages of fire and frost, Thy battles of land and ocean, "Were little rents in thine own little ball, And thine too was all the commotion. — 48 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. 'But now thy disaster flies back to the stars, Has infected the Milky "Way, The Cosmos is bleeding sore of thy sin, For thy deed thou hast now to pay." Then old Father Sun wrapped his face in a cloud Which I dreamed to drop into tears, While the Earth-hall suddenly backward whirled One turn of some millions of years. — 49 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. LAMENT I saw the wan Moon sail away Afar from her orbital round, As she vanished into the void She sobbed her sorrow profound : "I no longer can look on the Earth, Although my mother she be, She is stabbing herself to-day Her blood I shudder to see." ' ' mother, farewell, ' ' cried the Moon, "I break the family tie — Thy tragedy not to behold I am running out of the sky." Still round the horizon 's sad bound I heard the moonset 's last sigh : "I sink to my cosmical grave, Mother, with thee I now die." — 50 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. WHAT IT MEANS This discipline of suffering — What does it mean to me — Which belts the weeping Earth around In bloody agony? This belt of bloody agony Making the world one stain, Doth bind together all its parts In brotherhood of pain. The fellow-feeling of the man Taps deep the primal me, Then sets it flowing with all hearts In kindred sympathy. — 51 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. TO HAMLET Like Hamlet in the play I often have bad dreams, But most unlike to him I know the world of seems. And yet most real to him Was just that risen Ghost "Who told his deepest self The secret of the lost. That apparition is For Hamlet and for me; Yon world is what appears, This Ghost is what must be. But a still greater Ghost I hear in Hamlet moan, The greatest ghost of Time, It is Will Shakespeare's own. — 52 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. Then dares my dreamful dance A spectral whirl of three, We join us hand in hand — Will Shakespeare, Hamlet, me. Round all the world we rune In eerie rivalry, Until our ghosts hie home To hymn our Dreamery. — 53 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE JUDGMENT The planets too have judgment day, Each planet pleads his cause; The planetary deed is tried By planetary laws. I saw their hoar tribunal rise, The Earth was called to trial For all the blood spilt yesteryear, Her guilt met no denial. The father Sun gave sentence last, He was the Judge most high, He crushed our Earth-ball in his hand And flung it out the sky. "Go back" he criel "into my forge For penitential pain, Atone thy blood-guilt in my fires, Till thou be born again. — 54 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. Then bask afresh upon my sheen Becoming a new Earth; But now I thunder thee thy doom Unsphered be thou from birth." I saw our guilty Earth-ball burn By law of Judge Supreme "Whose thunders, shaking all the spheres, Me shook out of my dream. — 55 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. WHO AM I? Pulsed out of Eternity's wound I drip but a drop of blood ; That drop makes me share in the Whole Which I never before understood. I am but the point of a pang In Ubiquity's woe, Which beats on my little lone hour With a world's overthrow. In sorrow's great universe I am but an atom of pain Which echoes a planet's far plaint, And breaks into words of my strain. These words not only ooze balm To soothe my personal sting, They slake in the solace of speech The world-soul's suffering. — 56 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. GOD'S SPELL The God to-day puts on a mask Of darker tragedy, His grimmer presence makes me shrink And dareless graveward flee. Still on his lips a woful word Bespeaks his hoping heart: "For thee I am a God in pain And for the Future's part. "Pain is the human leveler Whose blessing is to be, When all mankind shall brothered rise Through Pain's democracy." — 57 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE BEREAVED MOTHER Again Demeter's moan I heard to start; For her lost child bewailed The mother's heart. Under a lid of earth It had been borne, From out this upper life Fate had it torn. Not now through Hellas old She wandered lone, But all around the world I heard her groan. Then rose up Father Zeus And took his throne, He spake a solemn word To ease her moan. — 58 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. "Of thy lost child know well The worthy meed; Immortal it doth live The mortal deed." DONNA DOLOROSA The Lady dolorous Gave me her gain — Her sympathy new-born Out of her pain. Thy sorrow too, man, Divine will he If thee it doth rebuild To sympathy. — 59 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. L'IMMORTELLE I do not fear to be a dream, And see behind these eyes Where things no longer outward seem- There lives my soul's last prize. My silent house I do not dread Nor shun its well-built wall; I know I shall rise from my bed When once I hear the call. Let me but roam beyond in sleep Myself I then shall see, And in the God's own bosom peep My immortality. 60 — PART FIBS? 1 — THE DREAM WORLD. ARISEN Of all that ever lived The Earth is but the tomb, Of all that ever died It also is the womb. And thou must make thy life To grow out of the grave, The death of death it is Alone which can thee save. The Overseer of all Has thus to thee directed : "Arisen, thou must rise To be self -resurrected. " 61 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. DAY AND NIGHT By day I pull a wooden boat Whose speed with toil is bought, By night I in a shallop float Whose oar is but my thought. By day I feel the bleeding rent For half of me is gone, By night that half of to me is sent And I am whole till dawn. By day are sundered human hearts And tears of blood then stream, By night restored are the parts When man can be a dream. — 62 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. A SIGH that my life might glide Into a dream, And I forever lave In Memory's stream! So would I flee beyond The world's eonfusion, And live again in love My dream's illusion. WORDLESS In madding throbs the heart doth break With memories upstirred; To set its throbs to song I seek, But I ken not the word. A vision hymns within my sleep, A roundel here unheard, That singing dream I fain would keep, But I ken not the word. — 63 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE NEW LAW To a new tribunal of Justice led Our World as a culprit I saw, Arraigned for its wrong I heard it to-night By a new cosmical law: f No more is thy blood-guilt merely thine own, Confined to thine own little ground; Thy stab has cut into the whole universe, And the Godhead too feels the wound. : For the suns and planets with satellites, And the star-sprent arch of the Galaxy's plan, The nebulous fire-mist of millions of worlds, Are but the lit members of one whole man." — 64 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD, HAUNTED A burden I feel, but 'tis not mine own, There haunts me a eosmical sorrow; If I fling it aside by force for a day, It worms back through me to-morrow. The plaint of the Planets I even may hear Suffusing my dream all the night, When I lie down to slumber abed with the Earth, Till Aurora may fleet me her light. The Earth-soul gives me to share of her pang, For I to her body am bound, And I am only one droplet of woe From her omnipresent wound. — 65 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE SUN'S REFUSAL The horologe of yon sun's face, Which measures moments drop by drop For this old billionth year of Earth, At last has come to a full stop. It is as if Sol turned his look Aside in melancholy mood, Refusing hence to keep the tale Which tallies this day's toll of blood. I wonder if the Sun is wroth, Presaging to shut off his light And turn old creeping Time himself To one long snaky night. — 66 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. THE OLD SUN-CLOCK The old sun-clock hung up in the skies Is ticking dull minutes to-day, As if rounding out terrestrial time With the final throw of his ray. The old sun-clock is getting tired Of telling the time of the world, For he too is fated to fall along To Chaos with Cosmos now swirled. The old sun-clock has fallen down space, To atoms he shrinks in the shock; But what do I see rise out the Beyond? It is a new sun with his clock. — 67 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. RENEWAL Fond ancient sorrows bubbling up Now load with sighs each breath; I thought they were forever gone, But they rise up from death. I feel the resurrection start Of an old suffering, And I am made to know again Of fate the primal sting. Though mine own manhood I keep one, Mankind is cut in two; The world's wide wound cleaves me apart Till I myself renew. How that may be I sing, friend, As burden of my strain : I must return into the womb And bear myself again. — 68 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. When I conceive the pregnant word Got of creation's throe, "With it I hymn myself reborn Out of my aged woe. PANORAMA What antique paintings I relume In my night's gallery Lit by the sprited sheen which haunts My House of Dreamery! A panorama of my years Before I had a memory, Paints all my centuries long done In shades of Dreamery. — 69 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. EDEN Image veiled of Dreamery, Search is vain for thy dim land, Yet unminded if I be, In thy shadow there I stand; Covered in thy cloudy fold By me are all secrets heard, If I ask to have them told, Then they vanish at a word. Hazy is thy welkin deep, Moonlit is thy silent sea, But the days forgotten keep Treasures buried there for me; Sweet embraces sunk in night, Forms that have been lost on earth, Rise again before my sight, Find a new, more radiant birth. — 70 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. When this upper world I leave, Sink I to that Paradise, There I meet first Love, my Eve, All whose faded moments rise; Then creeps knowledge, jealous snake, Spies our secret hiding-place, Flees the queen, my spirit's wake, Eden fair dissolves to space. — 71 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THOUGHT TO IMAGE The Master Thought for many years, Shall keep his philosophic school; He builds the universe anew And sees it circle by his rule. But what is this which slips one day Into that universe of Thought? The Image olden has returned But to new grandeur overwrought — Transfigured to all time it seems Out of a single face's years; It wails to me a worldful's woe Streaming with many millions' tears. — 72 PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. SELF-WINDER I look up at my heavenly watch, This Earth's time-piece and thine, Somehow it seems to have run down Ticking the grand design. "How can I wind my heavenly watch- God's measurer of me?" "First learn to wind thyself in all, Self -winder thou shalt be." MY BOOK My life is a fountain of dreams Whose droplets I catch in a book, As upward they jet to the sun And of them I drink as a brook. But when I have drunk to the full, And slaked all the thirst of my Muse, I slip to my underworld's sleep And wait for the next piece of news. — 73 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE WORLD'S HOSPITAL The day anatomizes me With light's dissecting knife; The night collects my scattered wits To heal my waking strife. The world dismembered is by day Whose surgeon is the light, The world turns one vast Hospital Whose healer is the night. RELIEF When I am but a lone tear-drop I turn it into rhyme Which makes it run a measure sweet To tune the jarring time. In rhythmic strain I bless my pain And sing it to a glee, My loss I set to tuneful words Which hymn my Dreamery. — 74 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. THE NEW SUN The last of all the setting suns, Downward I dreamed it diving; When Time's last setting sun had set, What next might be arriving? I was not dead nor yet alive, But in between I hovered, Till I within my Self's own space Another sun discovered. Out of its sheen the newer world I build with arching sky, On whose blue height I cap in song My dome of Dreamery. — 75 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE COMBAT A dreadful demon of a dream Swooped down on me last night, It napped its ghoulish grisly wings And challenged to a fight. I scourged to it my trembling ghost Who would the combat shun: "Conquer the fiend," I cried to mine, "Damnation is to run." "Unless you master it in song, And make it tune its spell, It will you nightmare evermore — The devil in your Hell." — 76 PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. THE HELPER Oh Dreamery, great friend, Who art most true, The gift thou givest me Fate to undo. Think not it is my sport To make this verse, I feel I must avoid What is far worse. My Dreamery, be thou The surgeon's knife, Which cuts me to the heart To save my life. — 77 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. LESSER PAIN Steep me in some lesser pain, Welling up to memory, That I may forget again What my heart once bade me be. Give me not my times of bliss, For I long to think and weep ; Give me not what most I miss, In some lesser pain me steep. Tender chords to-day I choose, Tune me to thy softer strain, Gentler stroke me, loving Muse, Steep me in some lesser pain. — 78 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. ORISON Golden Hours, rise once more Out your home within the deep, Bring along the loving lore, That ye in your bosom keep. Let me have again that night "When so oft I passed her door Stalking like a pallid sprite — Ne'er I knew myself before. Golden Hours, eome back again Out your silent sunken sea; Thrill me to your sweetest pain, Golden Hours, come back to me. — 79 THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE TIME'S HEALER I see the Earth-ball start to roll And run out of my sight, As if it were a guilty thing Which dares not face the light. Yet that is but the half of it "Which turns from light away, The other half rolls just as fast Into the sheen of day. I am the day, I am the night, Of both I am the birth; I see in me two hemispheres Become the one whole earth. Ah, fell I feel the Fury's blow Which pierces any part, So I let drop into my words The bleeding world's stabbed heart, — 80 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. Till the great Healer of the "Whole Doth medicine the time And healing all the wounded world Heals too my wounded rhyme. EARTH'S WOUND The pother was only thine own hitherto, Scratched on thy periphery's ball; Earth, in thee now creation is cleft, Thy hurt is hurt of the All. The wound universal is thine to-day, Of its gash the cosmos now bleeds; The Great God Himself seems suffering For His own creature's deeds. — 81 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. MY DREAMS Untimed, unspaeed is their world, AU-where, ail-when they can fleet, From the Great Me over the border To the Little Me down in the street. My writ rears a mansion of dreams In which I have daily to dwell, For what I am in myself They slip over to me and tell. Of all that I ever have been They whisper the ghostly voice, "With their word I have often to weep, And with it I often rejoice. From over my waking bounds They race to. wing into my soul With the message of aeons foregone, Whereof they keep the long scroll. — 82 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. So timeless, so spaceless their world, Wherever, whenever they roam, They bear the Great Me from beyond To the Little Me here in my home. PROVIDENCE When on my conch at night My head I lay, The Dream is the Great God To whom I pray: : Be thou the Providence To my lost soul; I fly to thee, Dream, To heal me whole." — 83 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. DAY It is the Day of Love ; What glow on high! The air is all one kiss From out the sky. It is the Day of Love ; Tell me, Oh why? The Heavens above look down One mild, blue eye. It is the Day of Love; Grief will not die, The breeze roves mid the hills One endless sigh. If is the Day of Love ; A face draws nigh; I feel the kiss of one From out the sky. — .84 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. NIGHT And now my Day of Love Hath shut its eye, Letting its sleepy lid Droop round the sky. Within my House of Dreams Lit is Love's light, And Dusk has slid away Into the Night. I, waking to the sun, Would all day roam, And then, Dreamery, To thee come home. — 85 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. BY DAY AND NIGHT Whither goest, joyous vision, Dancing on yon dome of sky? Lookest oft in light derision At our Earth that rolleth nigh; Or on beds of down thou liest Which the clouds have made for thee, And their golden fringe thou pliest In the Sun's bright tapestry. Whither goest, silent dreamlet, Nightly looking me to tears, Tears that form a sobbing streamlet Winding darkly through my years? Often have I sought to hold thee Till my heart thy image take, But if once my arms enfold thee, Then, alas, I am awake. 86 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. Vision, sunny must be heaven For me to behold thy face, And the tempest-cloud be riven To let through thy beams of grace ; Dreamlet, that from death upspringest "Where its darkness shrouds the urn, Thou of night thy being bringest, And to night thou dost return. 87 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. FUTURE The Future is a wayward nurse Who holds to man her breast, And bids him suck of her milk's curse- Of Hell's or Heaven's quest. She drove away the Now in scorn When I went to her school, And stuck into my heart the thorn That I was but her fool. The lying Future never came But scoffed me with her vow; No more I woo the trothless dame — I wed the eternal Now. — 88 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. PAST I met upon the Patmos isle The old Semitic seer; I asked: " "Where is thy Babylon?" He said: "Just now and here." I flew the sea to Delphi's rock, And prayed: "What will become?" The priestess riddled me her rune: it >rpj s Pandemonium " Still farther back I strayed in time To find the world's true dream; I mazed old Egypt's Labyrinth By lifeful Nile's hoar stream; From shrine of inmost holiness Shot forth a worded gleam: "Your House of Dreamery rebuilds My labyrinthine Dream." — 89 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. PROMETHEUS BOUND I 6111111)6(1 the Mount of Sighs Till pain grew eold, An iey soul there stood — Prometheus old. A frozen fount of tears Had ehilled his eye, I saw its erystal jet Point toward the sky. Hushed were its murmurs low, It flowed no more, But ever swelled within Its body hoar. In him I dream mine own Deed overbold, My tragedy I feel In Titan old. — 90 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND "When came along the Spring, And breathed soft, The Earth her mantle white Mid carols doffed. The crystal fount of tears To melt began, Ah, softened was the soil Through which they ran. And hot then gushed the stream Prom out that ice, Mine eye too overflowed With sudden rise. I dream Prometheus freed Of his deed's chain, But wake to feel still mine Th' old Titan's pain. — 91 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. DREAM'S UNIVERSE I saw a God to shape himself Out of the nought of Space, His head rose rounded to our globe On which he drew his face. His feet could tread the twinkling stars Like stones across Time's stream, O'er which I saw him stalk three strides "Within my daring dream. His church was the domed firmament Which walled the moonlit night, The sun was his hot beating heart Whose throbs rolled seas of light. High that huge body of the God Sat on all Space's throne, And oracled me his spirit's word, Which also was mine own: — 92 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. Thou, Dreamer, art the vision's voice "Which sings the soul of me, And this whole Universe is all Thy House of Dreamery." SHADOWS The moonshine is witching the world Entranced in a dreamy hue, All things have turned to a shade And I am a shadow too. "We waltz in that silvery shower — My own dear shadow with me ; Then romp we home to our feast In the House of Dreamery. — 93 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. GOD'S TEAR The sad sphered Earth-ball tonight One tear-drop of God doth seem, And the World-pain piercing my heart Stabs deeper to redden my dream. An angel touched me and said : "Here are three goblets of tears; Once more I give thee to taste The sorrows of all thy years." I drank off my childhood's cup Without a qualm or a halt; Water it was and no more, With perhaps a grain of salt. Then I quaffed the bowl of my youth, But it was very small, More salt there was than before With some infusion of gall. — 94 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. The angel handed me next The largest beaker of all: "Here is the rain of thine eyes That daily continues to fall." "Oh those are not tears of man, Why now do they look so red?" "Because thou art shedding not tears, 'Tis thy blood that thou dost shed." And so it fell out to-night This blood-shot terrestrial sphere From the great eye of the Dream-God Rolled down at my feet as a tear. 95 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. MY DUET Gory and ghostly is the strain I sing ; 'Tis blood that flows when pierced is the heart, And red must be the words that paint its smart, Since tears are such a superficial thing, Dropping betimes for any little sting "Which pricks a nerve and makes the body start, That they can not bestead the deeper Art "Which seeks the half-lost soul anew to wing. But ghostly too I say my strain to be ; For when the Present 's from our senses fled, And all the world around to us is dead, Then through the hallowed groves of Memory "We roam, or in the land of golden dreams "We dwell, where shadow substance seems. — 96 — PART FIRST— THE DREAM WORLD. RHYME'S CONDOLENCE Let speech be dashed with blood Just like this gory time; If the world's body bleeds, So also must my rhyme. I know my words are red, For from the heart they gush; Its drops rise to my tongue, And into verses rush. Red let them stand on white, The rubric to my grief, Their color in mine eye Is what me brings relief, And soothes this blood-let world Along with mine heart's me; Be thou God's dwelling-place, House of Dreamery! — 97 — THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. DECREE The Earth-man shook his shaggy head As he ran on his race; He grandly stepped along the stars, And shot his sphere through space. His haughty disc broke mouth and lips Which sang within my dream, While his huge eye-ball looked me through, To fate me he would seem: ''Thou, atom of my whole Earth's Pain — Of millions only one — Thou art to share the whole of it, The whole thou dar'st not shun." — 98 — PART FIRST.— THE DREAM WORLD. LOVE'S TRIUMPH At last the Judgment day Now strikes high noon, The Sun's great eye droops dusk Into a moon. The mountain and its trees To phantoms fade, The earth itself doth glide Into its shade. Mankind are longing dreams That haunt the tomb, And all things rush to meet Their shadowy doom. The Sun in Heaven shades Into a moon, While into Love's own soul The World doth swoon. — 99 — The House of Dreamery f>art g>econb THE DREAM LIFE Pain, thou art Time's very heart — The "universal Heart "Which throbs within this stricken world And of it makes me part. —101— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. BEYOND I sailed past the portals of morning, And swept through the ocean of space, Its little worlds everywhere scorning, Beyond was directed my face. I sought for some mountainous wall The universe has as its bourne, My mind was to scale it or fall Through measureless aeons forlorn. Beyond it I thought I could find The lost one to me and to Earth, And her to my soul I would bind And restore to the flesh of her birth. But that wall I always must climb When I to see her desire, Must slip out the trammels of Time And dwell in the spirit's pure fire. —102— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. BLESSED PAIN Give me back my blessed pain Out my sunken world within; Golden sorrow, bloom again That I may thy harvest win. Show to me once more that moon Swiftly trailing through the sky, Till she sank away too soon, Left me standing there to sigh. Doth the God of Suffering Suffer too along with me? He it is who makes me sing By his sacred sympathy. He it is to whom I sing All the pathos of my strain : Oh dear God of Suffering, Give me back my blessed pain, —103— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM I stretch my hands to hold her, Though shadow too I seem; In. arms I will infold her, A dream within a dream. In arms I will infold her, She fleets a ghostly gleam; My love I have not told her, A dream within a dream. My love I never told her, I would the lost redeem; My soul, embrace her bolder A dream within a dream. My soul, embrace her bolder And live the sun's warm beam, Ere we to love grow colder, A dream within a dream. —104— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. Ere we to love grow colder, Who now two shadows seem, I in my arms infold her, A dream within a dream. I in my arms infold her, Whom my own soul I deem; But oh! I could not hold her, A dream within a dream. Oh, Death! I could not hold her, Beyond she sped a gleam; But still my love I told her, A dream within a dream. —105— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. EVANISHMENT Notes are falling light and airy From the distant cloud, Of mine ear they seem so wary Scarcely are they loud; 'Tis the roundel of a spirit Dropping from above, And the skies that redden near it Show a heart of love. Let me feel again that measure Breathing on mine ear; — But in vain I seek the treasure, Voice no more I hear; All to nought hath waned the sweetness When I wished it most, Flashed into my brain its fleetness Just as it was lost. -106- PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. Thought in other thought now merges "While I walk along; — Hark! in soft melodious surges Swells again that song; As I seek anew to listen Dies the cadence fond, And methinks I hear it hasten To its world beyond. So departs my tuneful fairy If I mark her aught, Fades away the music airy At the ray of thought; If I think not I am near it Eound my path it flows; But if once I know I hear it, Hear I but the close. —107— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE SEASON'S PICTURE Another phantom I flit to-day; I am the Autumn As lone I stray. The grass is withered, Crisp are the leaves, The fruit is gathered, Stacked are the sheaves. The trees forsaken Weep low their fate, The frost hath taken Away their state. There stands how lonely The monarch oak! With bare head only Waits Winter's stroke. —108— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. The woods with riot No longer ring, The birds are quiet, Too sad to sing. Each living creature Doth seem to mourn, And over Nature A veil is worn. Dusk robes she borrows, Oh what has fled ! The season sorrows For its sere dead. Why stands this picture On Nature's scroll? It is the vesture Of my own soul. —109— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE OLD STORY The rose-bud has opened its lips And whispers to me of a maid, Whom Spring had brought to her bloom When her heart in my bosom was laid. The lark is trilling with glee Her bridal refrain in the shade, I know the song that she sings, Its music I learned of the maid. The lilly is drooping in white, Its leaves are beginning to fade, Oh well I hear what it tells — The story of the maid. —110— PART SECOND— THE DREAM LIFE. PAIN'S GOSPEL Through, suffering the world is one, For all must feel one pain, "We both, my foe and I, are hit, Our wounds make the same stain. And though our bodies smite apart In bleeding separation, Yet they keep that which makes them one- Their common tribulation. My soul I know to be mine own, "When battling with another, But when we both are writhing sore Each feels his sorrow's brother. —Ill— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE FALLING STAR I gazed on a falling star With its beautiful burning eye, Its train of diamonds afar Swept sparkling down the sky. Headlong it fell in the Sea Out of the Heavens above, But quenched its blaze could not be, It was the star of love. Old Ocean himself was fired When he felt that flame in his breast, He heaved and rolled and retired, Love too has stolen his rest. Though fallen is the star And vacant its place in the sky, In his breast it is brighter by far Than when it was shining on high. —112— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. In his breast it burns brighter by far As it dances and throbs in the wave, happier fallen star, Thy fall was thy fate thee to save. RE-UNITED In sleep I won the bourn Which made us twain; My soul has linked anew Its broken chain. I have re-joined in thee This halved sphere, And made it whole again Fused in a tear. —113— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. RETURNING STAR I once had a Heaven myself, Its deity I was alone; One star I hung from its arch And all the "universe shone. But that was old Satan's revolt Which I again must enact; His battle was not only once — It happens every day's fact. My Heaven has sunk into night And I am a god no more; From the star that looked in my face There twinkles no beam as of yore. fallen star of myself, I measure in music thy track Till it rounds out my orbit entire, For thou, I know, wilt come back. —114— PART SECOND— THE DREAM LIFE. NOW AND THEN A wretched solace must that be Which rests upon a lie, Foregoing manhood's brightest crown To put to flight a sigh. The world beyond is not of sense Eepeating just what's here, To Faith I will not sell my soul That I may dry a tear. Thy soothing hand, thy proffered lip, Thy loving eyes' soft beam Are dust, and only can be real When I myself am dream. -115— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. SELF-RESURRECTION A new uprisen dream Flew over me last night, It flashed its golden wings Waylaying me with light. It brought to me my ghost Which murmured from a cloud: "Thou hast been -often dead And buried in thy shroud. "But when it once was seen That thou wast well entombed, Straightway with one upburst Thou hast thyself exhumed. "And started with new life Which ran again its course, As if it had just tapped The one eternal source. —116— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. "Then thou wouldst die again, Thyself thou wouldst not save But with funereal gloom Be lowered in the grave. "That seemed the last of thee — But look! What now expect! The tomb curbs not thy power Thyself to resurrect. "So oft deceased man," Imbreathed me my own ghost, "So oft insouled anew, Thou art not to be lost. "Now bid I thee my best Unheard of man before; Dig up thy buried self And let it live once more, -117— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. "That it may tell in might The tale of thy life's prime, Then sing thy spirit new Reborn of this new time." From mine own raptured ghost I hear the biddance brave, I leap out of my dream As if I quit the grave. That word I must obey Without the least defection, Else dying soon again I lose self-resurrection. —118— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. THE DUET Like comrades we talk on the road Recalling the days that have fled, Mine own dear double and I — We both are a memory sped. Each hymns of the other's fate, For it seems also his own; Attuned to that spectral light The winds pipe ghostly their moan. Each shade with the other doth sing, Then airily fades to a swoon, While glimmering off the sky Has shot the last sheen oi the Moon. Together that dreamful duet Of my dear double and me, Doth echo etherial strains In my House of Dreamery. —119— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. DIRGE The wounded world in pain To wail I heard, It seemed to move two lips Which bled its word: "This half of me, oh lay Within the ground, A half can not be healed Of its one wound. "Nor tell me that old Time Can cure my sorrow; I will not have it cured, More would I borrow. "Ye murky shades of Night, My soul enshroud, Nor let one beam of light Cut through the cloud. —120— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. "I wish, to keep my heart All torn in two, And daily have it drip With bloody dew. "The other half of me Lies in the ground, This half can not be healed Drip, drip, oh wound." —121- THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE SERAPH A seraph flew down through the air And alighted close to my side, A store of beauty he brought *>Gainst sorrow my soul to provide. The crook of a shepherd he reached, When arose a peaceful strain, Of streams and mountains and sheep— But disgust was added to pain. As I turned away with a sigh, He put in my hand a bright sword, A song was soon heard in the air "With a hurrying, clangorous word. The battle came on with its roar, The heroes great valor displayed, I listened awhile to the noise Then handed him back his blade. —122— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. To weep the good seraph began As I turned again to depart, He stepped up behind me and laid To mine ear the throb of a heart. At once my body and soul Dissolved to a musical tear; Oh seraph, come down to my side And lay that heart to mine ear. —123— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. RECESSIONAL The Sun stood o'er my head At deep midnight, But in his great round eye Wan was the light. A tear cut off his rays From wonted glow; I said to him : "Oh Sun, Why weep'st thou so?" He moved his great round eye And looked at me: "Thy moans have reached the stars, I pity thee. "I've turned about my steeds, Am going back, The Past shall rise again, Along my track." He hurried to the East, Sank in the sea, And then from out the West At morn rose he. —124— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. Backward the seam of Time He rips each hour, The Done becomes undone "With crash of power. The tomb begins to live, There stirs the clay, The dead break out their graves And walk away. Thy hour is drawing on; Will burst my heart! What footsteps in the hall! Oh here thou art. And with thee floods the throng Of this year's slain, They hymn a world re-born And live again. But see! the Sun o'erhead Is turning round, And, telling future time, Looks, westward bound. —125— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE BELDAMES THREE I read long ago of the beldames three In many an olden history, Which still would seem but a fable to be Until their eyes got a hold on me. In a dream they crossed my path one day, I turned aside to avoid their way, My feet in fetters there seemed to stay, My jaws were locked, no word could say. ' ' He comes, ' ' they shrieked with a mad laugh of zeal, One had a spindle, another a wheel, A thread thereon she began then to reel, A thread whose clew in my brain I could feel. The third one raised the remorseless shears "Which her fingers ply through the murderous years, No wail can melt the wax of her ears, Her eyes fierce flame burns up all her tears. —126— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. The thread was flowing with droplets so red, The beldame looked for a moment and said : "If I should cut now this little thread, Then he, methinks, would only be dead. "But I shall snap his heart in twain, And take the part which has no pain, And leave him a half to bleed amain That he both alive and dead remain." The beldames three have left my path, But still I see those eyes of wrath, And daily in a crimson bath I feel the shears the beldame hath. For the beldames three have had a fresh birth, Now circling both me and all of the earth ; To the glut of gore there is no dearth, They take their blood-toll from every hearth. —127- THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE TWO VOICES Within my breast I keep hearing The voice of a dolorous round, Which, weaving through many a word, Would always bring back the same sound : "Heart, oh heart more heavy Than metal that ever was found, Methinks that if thrown in the river, I would sink with thee and be drowned. "Roaming in mead or in forest Removes of thy weight not a pound ; I tread and my feet seem sinking To my final home in the ground. "Earthy too is this bosom Whose walls enfold thee around, And whenever I hear thy throbbing Leaden and dead is the sound." —128— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. Answer to these reproaches Came back like a voice in a swound : "A grave is thy heart so heavy With corpse and coffin and ground. "Still thine be the voice of the Dreamer Upbearing thy sorrow profound, To feel as thine own the whole world-pain Now tossing the Earth-ball around. "For this globe is becoming a charnel And bleeding to death of its wound, "While throbless hearts by the million Are lowered to rest in the ground." —129— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE GIANT It hissed and flashed and thundered, With sulphur was filled the air, The Heavens from Earth were sundered By a wall of flaming despair. In the blaze stood a smiting Giant With the glare on his angry face, And his eyes flashed more defiant As he smote with his mighty mace. The Earth kept rolling and quaking That no one could firmly stand, Atlantean pillars were shaking Beneath his violent hand. Then burst the loudest thunder, But the figure no longer was seen; Still Heaven and Earth were asunder Though daylight lay between. —130— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. I sought for that figure volcanic Where last was heard the sound, The Earth showed a grin Satanic — A fissure in the ground. Still out of the mouth of that fissure Spoke the time's remedial grief, And I shouted after its measure The strain of mine own relief. -131— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE RELIEVER The universal man Lies stabbed to-day And with him I must bleed To let my lay. My rhymes are drops of blood That gurgle low, Their wound I dare not stanch, It has to flow. I would not sing a word If I were whole, But song alone relieves The writhing soul. —132— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. THE FACE OF PAIN I dreamed a face rose out of space — No words, no smiles, no winks — And yet Fate's oracle it looked, Then loomed the cosmic Sphinx. Adown from its fixed features flowed The world-heart's tearless Pain; I heard from those void lips of space In me this voiceless strain: "0 Pain, I feel thee Time's own heart — The universal Heart Which throbs within this stricken world And of it makes me part." —133— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. SPRING Spring, thy breath of youth Again is here, Thy laughing spell of life, I can but fear. "What storms the raging heart In wild refrain? Is it a new delight, Or the old pain? The South sends up her breeze To free the land, The brooks leap down the hills Out Winter's hand. The buds peep out their beds To greet the day, The forest orchestra Begins to play. —134^- PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. The children out the house Rush to the air, Wild rings the chime of glee, Joy everywhere. Heaven's Grand Almoner, The bright-haired Sun, Throws down his fairest gift, And Spring is won. Oh Spring, I cannot stand Thy merry strain, The more delight I feel The more the pain. -135- THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. ROSES Oil roses that dream in the sun, Arouse from your fragrant sleep, My heart "by your passion is won, And in wild longing doth leap. Your buds of "bright red from the spray Gush out like drops from the heart; Is it love o'erflowing in play, Or is it a wound '& bloody smart? The Sun doth soothe you "to rest, And round you more warm is his beam ; See the flame dart up in each breast! I know that of love is your dream. More scarlet is turning the rose, And darker is colored its stain ; 'Tis sending out blood in its throes, — Now I feel its dream is of pain. —136— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. Oh roses that bleed with the kiss That falls in the Sun's golden rain, Your passion is love's sweetest bliss, Yet oh, your passion is pain. LIKE THROUGH LIKE "Whenever words are tinct In colors of the heart, They must be read through tears Their crimson to impart. The Furies slash mankind, Like tigers gnash the years; Let Poet write in blood, Let Reader read through tears. -137— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. A TEAR To thee my daily meed of love I pay, a tear, Which lifts thee up from thy low bed Of clay, so drear. A tear that ever shall a picture Hold, of thee, Ta'en in some sad or happy time Of old, with me. A tear throbbed out the centre of My breast by throes, And quivering with a wavy wild Unrest of woes. A tear whose crystal holds thy life Serene insphered, And rules mine eye as some majestic Queen so weird. —138— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. A tear which bubbling up from Memory's Well down deep, Doth drag the Past from out his murky Cell of sleep. A tear which swells up to the Earth's Round ball apace, And from the sad Almighty's eye Doth fall through space. -139— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. THE ONE One face looks out the air Everywhere, Far on the sunset's cloud, In the crowd ; 'Thou art that dream," sing I, "Fleeting by"; To me smiles back thy look From my book; All letters spell the same Thy loved name; I see thee in thy bower Once more flower, Then o'er all falls the gloom Of the tomb — Still lives through thee undone Just the One. —140— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. NATURE'S KEY-NOTE A thousand voices Nature hath That whisper low and loud, Revealing what lies hid beneath The deep unconscious cloud. iWhatever music you may thrill In earth or sky around, Concordant to the mood within Its notes are ever found. She is the rising, setting sun, As well the calm as storm, She is another to herself — Her own two-visaged form. A varied music is her speech, But music deep and true, Its harmony you seek to find — The key-note lies in you. —141— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. VERNAL MOOD Vernal winds, so blandly blowing, Frozen waters free ye set, But my tears ye start to flowing Like the mountain rivulet. Vernal Sun, thou mildly shinest, Till the earth once more is dry, Otherwise thou me inclinest, Ever wet is now mine eye. Vernal Love, from thee youth borrows Sweetest strains of glee and hope, But to me thou breathest sorrows In whose memory I grope. Genial Spring, thy glance releases Ice-bound joys of all the year; But to me thy flood increases By the melting of this tear. —142— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. AUTUMNAL MOOD The Painter Autumn touches now the wood, He spreads his colors on the leafy green, A picture thereout grows of wondrous sheen Wherein he paints his melancholy mood; But when his work of beauty is once done, Each leaf which hath his gentle pencil felt, Drops down to earth and into soil doth melt When just its time of glory had begun. The gloomy Painter studies to portray On Nature 's canvas bright the face of Death ; But all his strokes are followed by decay, His picture vanishes before his breath ; And when the leaves are gone, as in a dream, He follows too, the victim of his theme. —143— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. PESSIMISM Somehow to-day I double am, And double shines the truthless Sun; Fair Nature turns a two-faced dream "When her I love as one. I glance aloft into the sky And there behold a fleecy cloud; It is a robe to deck a bride, Oh no, it is a shroud. I hear a warbler in the wood, The trees are trilling with his strain; His joy runs out the tiny beak, Oh no, it is his pain. The Sun looks down upon the world As he pursues his radiant race; What peace he spreads along his way ! What rage is in his face ! — 144— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. The lightnings flash, the thunders crash, The warrior battling times his breath; It is his victory presaged, But no, it is his death. OPTIMISM Let Nature twist her double tongue And let her feign her double face, Then stories criss-cross tell the friend "Who seeks her charm's embrace; But be his lot or weal or woe, His change from out her look hath shone ; Though manifold may be her mask, Her sympathy is one. -145— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. RESTORED I have called up a world of shades Wherein I love to be, An Image is my dearest mate, Which lives and loves with me. I throw away my conscious self, I pray to be a dream, That I may never feel or know I am not what I seem. A restoration sweet it is, Its nothingness I will not think, To me is sent a healing shape, To bind the broken link. —146— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. MEMORY Thou, Memory, art my waking dream If nought without assail; My life to live again I seem Repeating o'er its tale. So when from flesh the soul is free And all to nought is hurled, Must Memory be reality The ever-present world. But now I as a lover woo The maiden Memory, "Who lets me in her soul foreview My immortality. —147— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. IMAGE TO THOUGHT Death comes and rends the bond in twain, Removes the living from the sight; Emotion ploughs the breast with sobs, And all the world flies into night. Next out the darkness steps a form Which to the soul deep raptures saith ; It seems as if all is restored ; The Image triumphs over Death. But then this shape begins to fade, And e'en to flee what once it sought; Go back we must into the world, Now last the Image yields to Thought. Thou, Thinker, hast to-day returned Out of thy eerie phantoms ' strife ; Let now their discords be resolved To thy built symphony of life. —148— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. PSYCHOLOGY The Dream-sprite flurried me last night By his off psychic mood ; He whispered me a set of words I hardly understood: "Thou must be now subliminal; And to thy essence delve ; Though thou art born a self at first Thou must thyself reselve." "You are a mystagogue," I frowned, "Unsettling the time's brain "With psychologic Dreameries Which God cannot explain." But round me gloamed his new response As he to ether whirled: "Thou, man, hast never selved thyself Nor hast thou selved the world." —149— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. NO MORE Dreamer, sing it out What plagues thee sore; "Why eats this fire of Hell At thy heart's core? — : I dreamed that I could dream No more, no more. 'To-day I have a pain Ne'er felt before, There is a something gone I would restore; 1 dreamed that I could dream Of thee no more. 'Oblivion's hand wiped out All time of yore, And Heaven shut its book Of starry lore; I dreamed that I could dream Of thee no more. —150— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. "Some fiend in mantle black Stepped in my door, My heart soon felt a blade Pierce to its core; I dreamed that I coidd dream Of thee no more. "It was as if dim shapes My body bore, Then with an earthen pall 'Twas covered o'er; I dreamed that I could dream No more — no more." —151— THE HOUSE OF DREAMERY. LAST JUDGMENT I heard the God proclaim The time's new vow: Man, thy Future's Dream Round to the Now. The Holy Promise paid Must he to-day, Too long we have endured The false delay. Hope must fruition be Whose horn is full, And to the Real must change The Possible. To life the Image vain Must quickly leap. The dream and waking too One shape must keep. —152— PART SECOND.— THE DREAM LIFE. To Knowledge, brightest sun, All Faith must rise, Yet seek the world below And not the skies. The day of Judgment too Is every day, The Judge sits now to hear What you may say. The deed must be the creed Which is not said, And life an endless prayer Which is not prayed. God has become a man And Death a Birth, Let Heaven now fall down Upon the Earth. —153- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 227 017 8 JHp MfHH '■"PSSBI