A DREAM IN JUNE

In twilight of the longest day

I lingered over Lucian,

Till ere the dawn a dreamy way

My spirit found, untrod of man,

Between the green sky and the grey.

Amid the soft dusk suddenly

More light than air I seemed to sail,

Afloat upon the ocean sky,

While through the faint blue, clear and pale,

I saw the mountain clouds go by:

My barque had thought for helm and sail,

And one mist wreath for canopy.

Like torches on a marble floor

Reflected, so the wild stars shone,

Within the abysmal hyaline,

Till the day widened more and more,

And sank to sunset, and was gone,

And then, as burning beacons shine

On summits of a mountain isle,

A light to folk on sea that fare,

So the sky's beacons for a while

Burned in these islands of the air.

Then from a starry island set

Where one swift tide of wind there flows,

Came scent of lily and violet,

Narcissus, hyacinth, and rose,

Laurel, and myrtle buds, and vine,

So delicate is the air and fine:

And forests of all fragrant trees

Sloped seaward from the central hill,

And ever clamorous were these

With singing of glad birds; and still

Such music came as in the woods

Most lonely, consecrate to Pan,

The Wind makes, in his many moods,

Upon the pipes some shepherd Man,

Hangs up, in thanks for victory!

On these shall mortals play no more,

But the Wind doth touch them, over and o'er,

And the Wind's breath in the reeds will sigh.

Between the daylight and the dark

That island lies in silver air,

And suddenly my magic barque

Wheeled, and ran in, and grounded there;

And by me stood the sentinel

Of them who in the island dwell;

All smiling did he bind my hands,

With rushes green and rosy bands,

They have no harsher bonds than these

The people of the pleasant lands

Within the wash of the airy seas!

Then was I to their city led:

Now all of ivory and gold

The great walls were that garlanded

The temples in their shining fold,

( Each fane of beryl built, and each

Girt with its grove of shadowy beech,)

And all about the town, and through,

There flowed a River fed with dew,

As sweet as roses, and as clear

As mountain crystals pure and cold,

And with his waves that water kissed

The gleaming altars of amethyst

That smoke with victims all the year,

And sacred are to the Gods of old.

There sat three Judges by the Gate,

And I was led before the Three,

And they but looked on me, and straight

The rosy bonds fell down from me

Who, being innocent, was free;

And I might wander at my will

About that City on the hill,

Among the happy people clad

In purple weeds of woven air

Hued like the webs that Twilight weaves

At shut of languid summer eves

So light their raiment seemed; and glad

Was every face I looked on there!

There was no heavy heat, no cold,

The dwellers there wax never old,

Nor wither with the waning time,

But each man keeps that age he had

When first he won the fairy clime.

The Night falls never from on high,

Nor ever burns the heat of noon.

But such soft light eternally

Shines, as in silver dawns of June

Before the Sun hath climbed the sky!

Within these pleasant streets and wide,

The souls of Heroes go and come,

Even they that fell on either side

Beneath the walls of Ilium;

And sunlike in that shadowy isle

The face of Helen and her smile

Makes glad the souls of them that knew

Grief for her sake a little while!

And all true Greeks and wise are there;

And with his hand upon the hair

Of Phaedo, saw I Socrates,

About him many youths and fair,

Hylas, Narcissus, and with these

Him whom the quoit of Phoebus slew

By fleet Eurotas, unaware!

All these their mirth and pleasure made

Within the plain Elysian,

The fairest meadow that may be,

With all green fragrant trees for shade

And every scented wind to fan,

And sweetest flowers to strew the lea;

The soft Winds are their servants fleet

To fetch them every fruit at will

And water from the river chill;

And every bird that singeth sweet

Throstle, and merle, and nightingale

Brings blossoms from the dewy vale, -

Lily, and rose, and asphodel -

With these doth each guest twine his crown

And wreathe his cup, and lay him down

Beside some friend he loveth well.

There with the shining Souls I lay

When, lo, a Voice that seemed to say,

In far-off haunts of Memory,

Whoso death taste the Dead Men's bread,

Shall dwell for ever with these Dead,

Nor ever shall his body lie

Beside his friends, on the grey hill

Where rains weep, and the curlews shrill

And the brown water wanders by!

Then did a new soul in me wake,

The dead men's bread I feared to break,

Their fruit I would not taste indeed

Were it but a pomegranate seed.

Nay, not with these I made my choice

To dwell for ever and rejoice,

For otherwhere the River rolls

That girds the home of Christian souls,

And these my whole heart seeks are found

On otherwise enchanted ground.

Even so I put the cup away,

The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke,

And, nowise sorrowing, I woke

While, grey among the ruins grey

Chill through the dwellings of the dead,

The Dawn crept o'er the Northern sea,

Then, in a moment, flushed to red,

Flushed all the broken minster old,

And turned the shattered stones to gold,

And wakened half the world with me!

Each in the self-same field we glean

The field of the Samosatene,

Each something takes and something leaves

And this must choose, and that forego

In Lucian's visionary sheaves,

To twine a modern posy so;

But all any gleanings, truth to tell,

Are mixed with mournful asphodel,

While yours are wreathed with poppies red,

With flowers that Helen's feet have kissed,

With leaves of vine that garlanded

The Syrian Pantagruelist,

The sage who laughed the world away,

Who mocked at Gods, and men, and care,

More sweet of voice than Rabelais,

And lighter-hearted than Voltaire.