Tower of Ivory/Jason
JASON
I lay where stain of poppies crept
Across a summer hill,
And drowsy droning grasses slept
With heavy heads, and wild bees kept
Their slumbrous music still.
I lay and let my lazy dreams
Drift with the idle breeze
Like leaves that float on autumn streams,
Gilded as fairy quinqueremes,
Down to their magic seas.
I dreamed,—and all the fragrant earth
Was as a sailing cloud.
From tears and sorrows, for my mirth
I wove a rainbow mist, and birth
I folded in death's shroud.
I dreamed, but ever from the vale
Beneath the sun-drowsed hills,
There rose the pulsing of the flail,
The hiss of scythes, the mower's hail,
The hum of water mills:
And through the voices of the fields
A sweeter voice that said,
"It is the coward heart that yields
To dreams its heritage, nor wields
A sword unscabbarded."
Ah, voice that singeth bravely there,
Dost think that dreams are peace?
Dost think it cowardice to dare
Eternity of blind despair
For gold of fairy fleece?