Rosemary and Pansies/Lost Identity

by Bertram Dobell

LOST IDENTITY

I had a curious dream last night,
So odd it set me pondering:
Its lesson how to read aright
My thoughts afar went wandering.

Methought by evil planet crossed,
Or destiny unkind,
That I myself myself had lost,
And strove in vain to find.

I wandered here, I wandered there,
Poor weary-footed elf!
But found no traces anywhere
Of my unlucky self.

I asked of every one I met
If they had seen me lately;
A man, said I, well made and set,
Though not so very stately.

But none in country or in town
Could tell where I had wandered,
And so at last I sat me down,
And o'er the puzzle pondered.

I've searched in every likely place
Where he most oft is seen,
Said I, but find of him no trace:
What may this portent mean?

Every old bookshop hereabout
In search of him I've entered,
For that is where (without a doubt)
His thoughts are chiefly centred.

To concert hall and theatre
I've also gone—but vainly—
Although 'tis there, his friends aver,
He spends his leisure mainly.

Brown, Jones, and Robinson all say
That they nowhere have seen him,
Men of good faith and honour they,
Who wouldn't lie to screen him.

He'd no misfortunes to lament,
Nor ways nor means was tasked for:
If cash he'd wanted I'd have lent
Whatever sum he asked for.

And still the more for light I sought
The mystery seemed to thicken,
Till suddenly a brilliant thought
Did in my cranium quicken:

He by some magical device
As I was masquerading,
And by this shabby artifice
On my good name was trading.

But here the tangle grew too great
To hope for its untying:
I woke and found both him and me
Upon the sofa lying.

(That "lying" comment doth invite,
And 'tis indeed suggestive,
But I'm not fibbing—honour bright!
Nor had I been too festive.)

'Tis usual when a fable's told
With a moral to equip it;
So I my moral will unfold
For you to read—or skip it.

Most men, departing from the rôles
Nature for them intended,
Have wandered widely from their goals,
And to worse things descended.

So, in a sense, they lose themselves
(They may or may not know it)
And go about—poor witless elves—
Like your bewildered poet.

Few are the lucky folk whose lines
Are cast in places pleasant
On whom benignant fortune shines
With lustre ever crescent.

Alas! of these I am not one,
But spend my life in groping
After a path and finding none,
Yet always vainly hoping.

On many paths I've sought to tread,
But still turned back defeated;
With countless projects in my head
Have never one completed.

And now a life I feel was meant
Some good deed to achieve,
Can scarce do aught (so far 'tis spent)
Its promise to retrieve.

Oh! that myself I might but find
Ere fate rings down the curtain,
And no more wander, sick and blind,
Where naught is plain or certain!

1897