Adeimantus.

The dream of Adeimantus

Who carved for a Grecian Prince

Statues of perfect marble,

Fairer than all things since,

Wonderful, white, and gracious

Like lotus flowers on a mere,

Or phantoms born of the moonbeam,

Beyond all praise but a tear.

The dream of Adeimantus

( As he lay upon his bed ),

Wonderful, white, and gracious,

And this was the word it said.

“Arise! oh! Adeimantus,

The breath of the dawn blows chill,

The stars begin to fade

Ere the first ray strikes the sill.

Arise! oh! Adeimantus

For here is work to your hand,

If the fingers fashion the dream

As the soul can understand.”

He rose from his troubled bed

Ere the dream had faded away,

And he said, “I will fashion the dream

As the potter fashions the clay.”

He said in his great heart's vanity,

“I will fashion a wondrous thing

To stand in a palace of onyx

And blind the eyes of a king.”

He said in the pride of his soul

As the birds began to sing,

“I will surely take no rest

Till I fashion this wondrous thing.

I will swear an oath to eschew

The white wine and the red,

To eat no delicate meats

Nor break the fair, white bread.

I will not walk in the city

But labour here alone

In the dew and the dusk and the flush

Till the vision smiles from the stone.”

Six days he wrought at the marble,

But cunning had left his hand,

And his fingers would not fashion

What his soul could understand.

Six days he fasted and travailed,

Hard was the watch to keep,

So the chisel fell from his fingers

And he sank with a sob to sleep.

But a vision came to his slumber

Beautiful as before,

Floating in with the moonbeam

Gliding over the floor.

It floated in with the moonbeam

And stood beside his bed,

Wonderful, white, and gracious,

And this was the word it said.

“Courage, oh! Adeimantus,

I am the perfect thing

To stand in a shrine of jasper

And blind the eyes of a king.

I am the strange desire,

The glory beyond the dream,

The passion above the song,

The spirit-light of the gleam.

I come to my best beloved,

Not actual, from afar,

Fairer than hope or thought,

More beautiful than a star.

Courage, oh! Adeimantus,

Lay strength and strength to your soul.

You shall fashion surely a part

Tho’ you may not grasp the whole.”