AMBROSE BIERCE.

I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay

In a garden with flowers teeming.

On an island I lay in a mystical bay,

In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.

The ghost of a scent — had it followed me there

From the place where I truly was resting?

It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air,

The presence of roses attesting.

Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed

That the place was all barren of roses —

That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed,

Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses.

Full many a seaman had testified

How all who sailed near were enchanted,

And landed to search ( and in searching died )

For the roses the Sirens had planted.

For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed

In the stead of their singing forever;

But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed,

Though man had discovered them never.

I thought in my dream‘ twas an idle tale,

A delusion that mariners cherished —

That the fragrance loading the conscious gale

Was the ghost of a rose long perished.

I said, “I will fly from this island of woes.”

And acting on that decision,

By that odor of rose I was led by the nose,

For‘ twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian.

I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source

Of the redolent river — directed

By some supernatural, sinister force

To a forest, dark, haunted, infected.

And still as I threaded (‘ twas all in the dream

That I dreamed I was dreaming ) each turning

There were many a scream and a sudden gleam

Of eyes all uncannily burning!

The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew

That mirrored the red moon's crescent,

And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue,

Dim, wavering, phosphorescent.

But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free,

Led me on, though my blood was clotting,

Till — ah, joy!— I could see, on the limbs of a tree,

Mine enemies hanging and rotting!