Poems (Hinchman)/In last year's palace, built of dream and cloud
XXVI
In last year's palace, built of dream and cloud, I met a figure with bow'd head, and eyes That cast no light before them, and his sighsSpoke loud and strange, and bid no man be proud:
"I am that phantom all ye men call death; And him who dreams I trip up by the heel And tell him that his dreams are nowise real.—And cloud and dream and pleasure vanisheth.
"And him who lives I weave about with dreams Until his sorrow grow a phantom soul And he become a dreamer and is wholeOf cutting sorrow, drown'd in reveries' streams."
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Beyond the portal where my hand now knocks What great, soul-startling, distant phantom looms? I follow unknown halls to hidden roomsBehind the door that this new day unlocks.