The poetical works of Thomas Campbell/A Dream
A DREAM.
Well may sleep present us fictions,Since our waking moments teemWith such fanciful convictionsAs make life itself a dream.—Half our daylight faith's a fable;Sleep disports with shadows too,Seeming in their turn as stableAs the world we wake to view.Ne'er by day did Reason's mintGive my thoughts a clearer print Of assured reality,Than was left by PhantasyStamped and coloured on my sprite,In a dream of yesternight.
In a bark, methought, lone steering,I was cast on Ocean's strife;This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,Meant the sea of life.Sad regrets from past existenceCame, like gales of chilling breath;Shadowed in the forward distanceLay the land of Death.Now seeming more, now less remote,On that dim-seen shore, methought,I beheld two hands a spaceSlow unshroud a spectre's face;And my flesh's hair upstood,—'Twas mine own similitude.—
But my soul revived at seeingOcean, like an emerald spark,Kindle, while an air-dropt beingSmiling steered my bark.Heaven-like—yet he looked as humanAs supernal beauty can,More compassionate than woman,Lordly more than man.And as some sweet clarion's breathStirs the soldier's scorn of death—So his accents bade me brookThe spectre's eyes of icy look,Till it shut them—turned its head,Like a beaten foe, and fled.
"Types not this," I said, "fair spirit!That my death-hour is not come?Say, what days shall I inherit?—Tell my soul their sum.""No," he said, "yon phantom's aspect,Trust me, would appal thee worse,Held in clearly measured prospect:—Ask not for a curse!Make not, for I overhearThine unspoken thoughts as clearAs thy mortal ear could catchThe close-brought tickings of a watch—Make not the untold requestThat's now revolving in thy breast.
'Tis to live again, remeasuringYouth's years, like a scene rehearsed,In thy second life-time treasuringKnowledge from the first.Hast thou felt, poor self-deceiver!Life's career so void of pain,As to wish its fitful feverNew begun again?Could experience, ten times thine,Pain from Being disentwine—Threads by Fate together spun?Could thy flight Heaven's lightning shun?No, nor could thy foresight's glance'Scape the myriad shafts of Chance.
Wouldst thou bear again Love's trouble—Friendship's death-dissevered ties;Toil to grasp or miss the bubbleOf Ambition's prize? Say thy life's new guided actionFlowed from Virtue's fairest springs—Still would Envy and DetractionDouble not their stings?Worth itself is but a charterTo be mankind's distinguished martyr."I caught the moral, and cried, "Hail!Spirit! let us onward sailEnvying, fearing, hating none—Guardian Spirit, steer me on!"