92
THE PASSION OF A DREAM.
Knee-deep among the river-ferns,Browsing the tender vines.
I slept a sleep of passionate dreaming,Wierd shapes of demons, and of stars,A back-ground made, them rose before me,Supremely bright, a vision fair.
A form permitting no description,My gaze discerned not lips or eyes,Nor any color, nor limb-shaping,But clouds of faint perfume did rise,
Shadowing that power of Life sublime,A destiny that would control,My Future, and make Time's axis turn,The wheel of Fate whereon it rolled.
I wandered through the mazy shadows,Of by-gone ages where there shone,Old altars bronzed with heathen statues,Of horses-winged, of bats and gnomes.
Seeking that plenitude of grandeur.Some ghostly shadow of a hope,Drew me still deeper in the shadow,Of their dim labyrinth's to grope.
I said, "the voiceless mystery I seek,Which if I find, no power shall wrest from me.
