Rosemary and Pansies/The Dream of Life

by Bertram Dobell

THE DREAM OF LIFE

"——We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

 

Is all existence then a dream,
Where midwife Fancy reigns supreme?
Are earth and ocean, sun and sky,
Creations of mere Phantasy?
Are all the things that seem but vain
Phantoms within a phantom brain?
Is Nature but a mirage bright
On ancient Chaos' mask of night?
Are all we see and all we feel
Alike phantasmal and unreal?

Ah yes! existence is but dreaming,
However solid 'tis in seeming;
Dreams are our loves and hopes and fears,
Ambitions, triumphs, smiles and tears;
In waking dreams we pass the day,
And dreams the hours of darkness sway,
(Day-dreams or night-dreams—who can guess
Whether their truth is more or less?)
Perchance even Death is but a dream,
And fleshless skulls with visions teem.
The Gods we pray to and adore
Are shadows of our dreams—no more;
Heaven is a dream of yearning born,
And hell the dream of the forlorn;
Angels are born from sunny skies,
Devils from night and storm arise;
A vast phantasmagoric birth
Is all our wondrous heaven and earth;
Space, Time, the Universe, are naught
But shadows of that central Thought,
Which mortals ne'er may comprehend,
Whence issues all, where all doth end:
O'er all is phantasy supreme,
What most seems real is most a dream!

The visions that we dream to-day
That seem such newness to display,
Were dreamed in dim and long-past ages
By patriarchs, poets, lovers, sages;
All that we feel and all we know
Were felt and known long, long ago;
We think no thought, no passions feel
Save such as nature did reveal
To our first father, when this earth
From fiery star-dust sprang to birth.
We dream of progress gained by stages
Successive through successive ages.
But like a squirrel in a cage
Never advance a single stage,
Or like a horse to mill-wheel bound
For ever travel round and round;
Condemned to think thoughts thought before,
And wearily to travel o'er
The barren realm of make-believe,
And knowingly ourselves deceive

With the old childish speculations
And unexplaining explanations:
Trusting in old worn-out traditions,
Or newly-minted superstitions,
Which prove to be, when tested, naught
But bastard spawn of ancient thought;
Nothing we see in truth's pure light,
But all in falsehood's hues bedight;
The cup from life's pure fount decline
To drug ourselves with poisoned wine;
Curse fate which does but give us scope
To hang ourselves with our own rope;
With all that we can use or need
Grasping at more with sateless greed;
Ever, though mocked and mortified,
Parading with a peacock's pride;
Matching brave words with coward deeds,
Fettering our souls with craven creeds;
For ever forging chains to bind
In straiter bondage heart and mind.

Dreams within dreams and dreams within them
We spin and never cease to spin them.
The victims ever of illusions.
And mocking protean delusions:
The playthings of ironic fate.
Dreaming we live and love and hate;
Striving though strife brings naught but pain,
Hoping though all our hopes are vain;
Seeking for what we may not find,
Wayward and roving as the wind;
Shadows for ever we pursue,
And still the bootless chase renew;

Prefer a Will o' the Wisp's false light
To Reason's lanthorn dear and bright;
Heap follies upon follies till
They overmaster mind and will,
And, rendering us to reason blind,
Perversity controls the mind;
For truth pretend to yearn, but when
She shows herself, avert our ken
In mortal fear her gaze so stern
Win all our weaknesses discern,
And an the errors that we cherish
'Neath her too-piercing eyesight perish.

Soaring, alas! how soon we tire,
To sink yet deeper in the mire,
Yet from our deepest degradation,
Ascend to heights of exaltation,
For still there shines a spark within
That's never wholly quenched by sin.

Look through a microscope and see
The countless animalculæ
That in a drop of water dwell:—
Think you the creatures do not swell
With self-importance at the thought
That the whole universe was wrought
Solely to give them such a home,
With space so vast in which to roam?
And who shall say they are not wise
At a high rate themselves to prize?
Since in Dame Nature's wondrous scheme,
Where miracles on all sides teem,

We know not what she may account
Of her creations paramount;
Or rather say, her equal eye
Doth all impartially descry,
Nothing to her is great or small,
Alike her bosom fosters all,
Despises naught, loves none too well
Of all that in her kingdom dwell,
But gives to all whate'er they need
Favouring no more the flower than weed.

What but a dream is all that's past?
The Future's but a dream forecast;
If aught that's not a dream can be
'Tis what we in the present see,
But that dissolves before our eyes
Ere we its import realise;
Strive as we may to hold it fast.
Naught that we see or feel may last;
As in a swiftly-moving train
We motionless seem to remain,
While the receding landscape flies
So fast it mocks our straining eyes—
So are we hurried on our way,
No time to think, no power to stay;
With swifter and yet swifter pace,
Onward, we know not where, we race,
Until, amazed and out of breath,
We reach the final station—Death.

So in a tangled maze of errors.
Of sins, perplexities and terrors,

Of rushings hither, flyings thither,
And never knowing whence or whither,
Seeking to find his soul for ever,
But ever foiled in the endeavour;
A shuttlecock predestinate
Created for the sport of fate;
An actor in an aimless plot—
Such is man's ever-hapless lot:
Consistent but in inconsistence,
Such is, was, must be, his existence.

1901-3