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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354914" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Tower of the Dream</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Part I <br>HOW wonderful are dreams! If they but be <br>As some have said, the thin disjoining shades <br>Of thoughts or feelings, long foregone or late, <br>All interweaving, set in ghostly act <br>And strange procession, fair, grotesque, or grim, <br>By mimic fancy; wonderful no less <br>Are they though this be true and wondrous more <br>Is she, who in the dark, and stript of sense, <br>Can wield such sovereignty—the Queen of Art! <br>For what a cunning painter is she then, <br>Who hurriedly embodying, from the waste <br>Of things memorial littering life’s dim floor, <br>The forms and features, manifold and quaint, <br>That crowd the timeless vistas of a dream, <br>Fails in no stroke, but breathes Pygmalion-like <br>A soul of motion into all her work; <br>And doth full oft in magic mood inspire <br>Her phantom creatures with more eloquent tones <br>Than ever broke upon a waking ear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But are they more? True glimpses oft, though vague, <br>Over that far unnavigable sea <br>Of mystic being, where the impatient soul <br>Is sometimes wont to stray and roam at large? <br>No answer comes. Yet are they wonderful <br>However we may rank them in our lore, <br>And worthy some fond record are these dreams <br>That with so capable a wand can bring <br>Back to the faded heart the rosy flush <br>And sweetness of a long-fled love, or touch <br>The eyes of an old enmity with tears <br>Of a yet older friendship; or restore <br>A world-lost mate, or reunite in joy <br>The living and the dead!—can, when so wills <br>Their wand’s weird wielder, whatsoe’er it be, <br>Lift up the fallen—fallen however low! <br>Give youth unto the worn, enrich the poor; <br>Build in the future higher than the hope <br>Of power, when boldest, ever dared to soar; <br>Annul the bars of space, the dens of time, <br>Giving the rigid and cold-clanking chain <br>Which force, that grey iniquity, hath clenched <br>About its captive, to relent,—yea, stretch <br>Forth into fairy-land, or melt like wax <br>In that fierce life whose spirit lightens wide <br>Round freedom, seated on her mountain throne. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But not thus always are our dreams benign; <br>Oft are they miscreations—gloomier worlds, <br>Crowded tempestuously with wrongs and fears, <br>More ghastly than the actual ever knew, <br>And rent with racking noises, such as should <br>Go thundering only through the wastes of hell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, wonderful are dreams: and I have known <br>Many most wild and strange. And once, long since, <br>As in the death-like mystery of sleep <br>My body lay impalled, my soul arose <br>And journeyed outward in a wondrous dream. <br>In the mid-hour of a dark night, methought <br>I roamed the margin of a waveless lake, <br>That in the knotted forehead of the land <br>Deep sunken, like a huge Cyclopean eye, <br>Lidless and void of speculation, stared <br>Glassily up—for ever sleepless—up <br>At the wide vault of heaven; and vaguely came <br>Into my mind a mystic consciousness <br>That over against me, on the farther shore <br>Which yet I might not see, there stood a tower. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The darkness darkened, until overhead <br>Solidly black the starless heaven domed, <br>And earth was one wide blot;—when, as I looked, <br>A light swung blazing from the tower (as yet <br>Prophesied only in my inner thought), <br>And brought at once its rounded structure forth <br>Massive and tall out of the mighty gloom. <br>On the broad lake that streaming radiance fell, <br>Through the lit fluid like a shaft of fire, <br>Burning its sullen depths with one red blaze. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Long at that wild light was I gazing held <br>In speechless wonder, till I thence could feel <br>A strange and thrillingly attractive power; <br>My bodily weight seemed witched away, aloft <br>I mounted, poised within the passive air, <br>Then felt I through my veins a branching warmth, <br>The herald of some yet unseen content, <br>The nearness of some yet inaudible joy, <br>As if some spell of golden destiny <br>Lifted me onwards to the fateful tower. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">--------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Part II <br>High up the tower, a circling balcony <br>Emporched a brazen door. The silver roof <br>Rested on shafts of jet, and ivory work <br>Made a light fence against the deep abyss. <br>Before that portal huge a lady stood <br>In radiant loveliness, serene and bright, <br>Yet as it seemed expectant; for as still <br>She witched me towards her, soft she beckon’d me <br>With tiny hand more splendid than a star; <br>And then she smiled, not as a mortal smiles <br>With visible throes, to the mere face confined, <br>But with her whole bright influence all at once <br>In gracious act, as the Immortals might, <br>God-happy, or as smiles the morning, when <br>Its subtle lips in rosy beauty part <br>Under a pearly cloud, and breathe the while <br>A golden prevalence of power abroad, <br>That taketh all the orient heaven and earth <br>Into the glory of its own delight. <br>Then in a voice, keen, sweet, and silvery clear, <br>And intimately tender as the first <br>Fine feeling of a love-born bliss, she spoke, <br>“Where hast thou stayed so long? Oh, tell me where?” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With thrilling ears and heart I heard, but felt <br>Pass from me forth a cry of sudden fear, <br>As swooning through the wildness of my joy, <br>Methought I drifted,—whither? All was now <br>One wide cold blank; the lady and the tower, <br>The gleaming lake, with all around it, one <br>Wide dreary blank;—the drearier for that still <br>A dizzy, clinging, ghostly consciousness <br>Kept flickering from mine inmost pulse of life, <br>Like a far meteor in some dismal marsh; <br>How long I knew not, but the thrilling warmth <br>That, like the new birth of a passionate bliss, <br>Erewhile had searched me to the quick, again <br>Shuddered within me, more and more, until <br>Mine eyes had opened under two that made <br>All else like darkness; and upon my cheek <br>A breath that seemed the final spirit of health <br>And floral sweetness, harbingered once more <br>The silver accents of that wondrous voice, <br>Which to have heard was never to forget; <br>And with her tones came, warbled as it seemed, <br>In mystical respondence to her voice, <br>Still music, such as Eolus gives forth, <br>But purer, deeper;—warbled as from some <br>Unsearchable recess of soul supreme, <br>Some depth of the Eternal! echoing thence <br>Through the sweet meanings of its spirit speech. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I answered not, but followed in mute love <br>The beamy glances of her eyes; methought <br>Close at her side I lay upon a couch <br>Of purple, blazoned all with stars of gold <br>Tremblingly rayed with spiculated gems; <br>Thus sat we, looking forth; nor seemed it strange <br>That the broad lake, with its green shelving shores, <br>And all the hills and woods and winding vales, <br>Were basking in the beauty of a day <br>So goldenly serene, that never yet <br>The perfect power of life-essential light <br>Had so enrobed, since paradise was lost, <br>The common world inhabited by man. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I saw this rare surpassing beauty;—yea, <br>But saw it all through her superior life, <br>Orbing mine own in love; I felt her life, <br>The source of holiest and truth-loving thoughts, <br>Breathing abroad like odours from a flower, <br>Enriched with rosy passion, and pure joy <br>And earnest tenderness. Nor ever might <br>The glassy lake below more quickly give <br>Nimble impressions of the coming wind’s <br>Invisible footsteps, dimpling swift along, <br>Than instant tokens of communion sweet <br>With outward beauty’s subtle spirit, passed <br>Forth from her eyes, and thence in lambent waves <br>Suffused and lightened o’er her visage bright. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But as upon the wonder of her face <br>My soul now feasted, even till it seemed <br>Instinct with kindred lustre, lo! her eyes <br>Suddenly saddened; then abstractedly <br>Outfixing them as on some far wild thought <br>That darkened up like a portentous cloud <br>Over the morning of our peace, she flung <br>Her silver voice into a mystic song <br>Of many measures, which, as forth they went, <br>Slid all into a sweet abundant flood <br>Of metric melody! And to her voice <br>As still she sung, invisible singers joined <br>A choral burden that prolonged the strain’s <br>Rich concords, till the echoes of the hills <br>Came forth in tidal flow, and backward then <br>Subsiding like a refluent wave, died down <br>In one rich harmony. It strangely seemed <br>As though the song were ware that I but slept, <br>And that its utterer was but a dream; <br>’Tis traced upon the tablet of my soul <br>In shining lines that intonate themselves— <br>Not sounding to the ear but to the thought— <br>Out of the vague vast of the wonderful, <br>And might, when hardened into mortal speech, <br>And narrowed from its wide and various sweep <br>Into such flows as make our waking rhymes <br>Most wildly musical, be written thus:— </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Song <br> Wide apart, wide apart, <br> In old Time’s dim heart <br>One terrible Fiend doth his stern watch keep <br> Over the mystery <br>  Lovely and deep, <br> Locked in thy history, <br>  Beautiful Sleep! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Could we disarm him, <br> Could we but charm him, <br>The soul of the sleeper might happily leap, <br>Through the dark of the dim waste so deathly and deep <br> That shroudeth the triple divinity, <br> The three of thy mystical Trinity: <br> Gratitude, Liberty, <br> Joy from all trammels free, <br> Beautiful Spirit of Sleep! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Beautiful Spirit! <br> Could we confound him <br>  Who darkens thy throne, <br> Could we surround him <br>  With spells like thine own <br>  For the divinity <br>  Then of thy Trinity, <br> Oh, what a blesseder reign were begun! <br> For then it were evermore one, <br>With all that soul, freed from the body’s strait scheme, <br>Inherits of seer-light and mystical dream. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And to sleep were to die <br>  Into life in the Infinite, <br> Holy and high, <br>  Spotless and bright, <br> Calmly, peacefully deep <br>Ah then! that dread gulf should be crossed by a mortal, <br>Ah then! to what life were thy bright arch the portal, <br> Beautiful Spirit of Sleep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------ </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Part III <br>She ceased, and a deep tingling silence fell <br>Instantly round,—silence complete, and yet <br>Instinct as with a breathing sweetness, left <br>By the rare spirit of her voice foregone; <br>Even as the fragrance of a flower were felt <br>Pervading the mute air through which erewhile, <br>It had been borne by the delighted hand <br>Of some sweet-thoughted maiden. Turning then <br>Her bright face towards me, as I stood entranced, <br>Yet with keen wonder stung, she said, “I love thee <br>As first love loveth—utterly! But ah <br>This love itself—this purple-wingéd love— <br>This life-enriching spirit of delight <br>Is but a honey-bee of paradise, <br>That only in the morning glory dares <br>To range abroad, only in vagrant mood, <br>Adventures out into the common world <br>Of man and woman, thither lured by sight <br>Of some sweet human soul that blooms apart, <br>Untainted by a rank soil’s weedy growths <br>Lured thither thus, yet being even then <br>A wilful wanderer from its birthplace pure, <br>Whereto it sadly must return again, <br>Or forfeit else its natal passport, ere <br>The dread night cometh. Yet of how great worth <br>Is love within the world! By the fair spring <br>Of even the lowliest love, how many rich <br>And gracious things that could not else have been, <br>Grow up like flowers, and breathe a perfume forth <br>That never leaves again the quickened sense <br>It once hath hit, as with a fairy’s wand!” <br>She spoke in mournful accents wild and sweet, <br>And lustrous tears brimmed over from the eyes <br>That met my own now melancholy gaze. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But not all comfortless is grief that sees <br>Itself reflected in another’s eyes, <br>And love again grew glad: alas, not long <br>For with a short low gasp of sudden fear <br>She started back, and hark! within the tower <br>A sound of strenuous steps approaching fast <br>Rang upwards, as it seemed, from the hard slabs <br>Of a steep winding stair; and soon the huge <br>And brazen portal, that behind us shut, <br>Burst open with a clang of loosened bolts— <br>A clang like thunder, that went rattling out <br>Against the echoes of the distant hills. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With deafened ears and looks aghast I turned <br>Towards the harsh noise, there to behold, between <br>The mighty jambs in the strong wall from which <br>The door swung inward, a tremendous form! <br>A horrid gloomy form that shapeless seemed, <br>And yet, in all its monstrous bulk, to man <br>A hideous likeness bare! Still more and more <br>Deformed it grew, as forth it swelled, and then <br>Its outlines melted in a grizzly haze, <br>That hung about them, even as grey clouds <br>Beskirt a coming tempest’s denser mass, <br>That thickens still internally, and shows <br>The murkiest in the midst—yea, murkiest there, <br>Where big with fate, and hid in solid gloom, <br>The yet still spirit of the thunder broods, <br>And menaces the world. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beholding that dread form, the lady of light <br>Had rushed to my extended arms, and hid <br>Her beamy face, fright-harrowed, in my breast! <br>And thus we stood, made one in fear; while still <br>That terrible vision out upon us glared <br>With horny eyeballs—horrible the more <br>For that no evidence of conscious will, <br>No touch of passion, vitalized their fixed <br>Eumenidèan, stone-cold stare, as towards <br>Some surely destined task they seemed to guide <br>Its shapeless bulk and awful ruthless strength. <br>Then with a motion as of one dark stride <br>Shadowing forward, and outstretching straight <br>One vague-seen arm, from my reluctant grasp <br>It tore the radiant lady, saying “This <br>Is love forbidden!” in a voice whose tones <br>Were like low guttural thunders heard afar, <br>Outgrowling from the clouded gorges wild <br>Of steep-cragged mountains, when a sultry storm <br>Is pondering in its dark pavilions there. <br>Me then he seized, and threw me strongly back <br>Within the brazen door; its massive beam <br>Dropped with a wall-quake, and the bolts were shot <br>Into their sockets with a shattering jar. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I may not paint the horrible despair <br>That froze me now; more horrible than aught <br>In actual destiny, in waking life, <br>Could give the self -possession of my soul. <br>Within, without,—all silent, stirless, cold <br>Whither was she, my lady of delight <br>Reft terribly away? Time—every drip of which <br>Was as an age—kept trickling on and on, <br>Brought no release, no hope; brought not a breath <br>That spake of fellowship, or even of life <br>Out of myself. Utterly blank I stood <br>In marble-cold astonishment of heart! <br>And when at length I cast despairing eyes— <br>Eyes so despairing that the common gift <br>Of vision stung me like a deadly curse— <br>The dungeon round, pure pity of myself <br>So warmed and loosened from my brain, the pent <br>And icy anguish, that its load at once <br>Came like an Alp-thaw streaming through my eyes; <br>Till resignation, that balm-fragrant flower <br>Of meek pale grief that hath its root in tears, <br>Grew out of mine, and dewed my soul with peace. <br>My dungeon was a half-round lofty cell, <br>Massively set within the crossing wall <br>That seemed to cut the tower’s whole round in twain; <br>A door with iron studs and brazen clamps <br>Shut off the inner stairway of the tower; <br>And by this door a strange and mystic thing, <br>A bat-winged steed on scaly dragon claws, <br>Stood mute and rigid in the darkening cell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The night came on; I saw the bat-winged steed <br>Fade, melt and die into the gathering gloom, <br>Then in the blackness hour by hour I paced, <br>And heard my step—the only sound to me <br>In all the wide world—throb with a dull blow <br>Down through the hollow tower that seemed to yawn. <br>A monstrous well beneath, with wide waste mouth <br>Bridged only by the quaking strip of floor <br>On which I darkling strode. Then hour on hour <br>Paused as if clotting at the heart of time, <br>And yet no other sound had being there <br>And still that strange, mute, mystic, bat-winged steed <br>Stood waiting near me by the inner door. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">--------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Part IV <br>At last, all suddenly, in the air aloft <br>Over the tower a wild wailful song <br>Woke, flying many-voiced, then sweeping off <br>Far o’er the echoing hills, so passed away <br>In dying murmurs through the hollow dark. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Song <br> In vain was the charm sought <br> In vain was our spell wrought <br>Which that dread watcher’s eyes drowsy might keep; <br>  In vain was the dragon-steed <br> There at the hour of need <br>Out with his double freight blissward to sweep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Lost—lost—lost—lost! <br>In vain were our spells of an infinite cost <br> Lost—lost—lost—lost! <br>Yon gulf by a mortal may never be crossed <br> Never, ah never! <br> The doom holds for ever <br> For ever! for ever! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Away, come away! <br>For see, wide uprolling, the white front of day! <br>Away to the mystic mid-regions of sleep, <br> Of the beautiful Spirit of sleep. <br> Lost—lost—lost—lost! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The gulf we are crossing may never be crossed <br> By a mortal, ah, never! <br> The doom holds for ever! <br> For ever! for ever! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So passed that song (of which the drift alone <br>Is here reached after in such leaden speech <br>As uncharmed mortals use). And when its tones <br>Out towards the mountains in the dark afar </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had wasted, light began to pierce the gloom, <br>Marbling the dusk with grey; and then the steed, <br>With his strange dragon-claws and half-spread wings, <br>Grew slowly back into the day again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The sunrise! Oh, it was a desolate pass <br>Immured in that relentless keep, to feel <br>How o’er the purple hills came the bright sun, <br>Rejoicing in his strength; and then to know <br>That he was wheeling up the heaven, and o’er <br>My prison roof, tracking his midway course <br>With step of fire, loud rolling through the world <br>The thunder of its universal life! <br>Thus seven times wore weary day and night <br>Wearily on, and still I could not sleep. <br>And still through this drear time the wintry tooth <br>Of hunger never gnawed my corporal frame; <br>No thirst inflamed me; while by the grim door <br>That strange, unmoving, dragon-footed steed <br>Stood as at first. Mere wonder at my doom <br>Relieved the else-fixed darkness of despair! <br>But on the seventh night at midnight—hark! <br>What might I hear? A step?—a small light step, <br>That by the stair ascending, swiftly came <br>Straight to the inner door—then stopped. Alas! <br>The black leaf opened not; and yet, the while, <br>A rainbow radiance through its solid breadth <br>Came flushing bright, in subtle wave on wave, <br>As sunset glow in swift rich curves wells forth <br>Through some dense cloud upon the verge of heaven: <br>So came it, filling all the cell at length <br>With rosy lights; and then the mystic steed <br>Moved, and spread wide his glimmering bat-like wings. <br>When hark! deep down in the mysterious tower <br>Another step! Yea, the same strenuous tramp <br>That once before I heard, big beating up— <br>A cry, a struggle, and retreating steps! <br>And that fair light had faded from the air. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Again the hateful tramp came booming up; <br>The great door opened, and the monster-fiend <br>Filled all the space between the mighty jambs. <br>My heart glowed hot with rage and hate at once; <br>Fiercely I charged him, but his horrible glooms <br>Enwrapped me closer, in yet denser coils <br>Every dread moment! But my anguish now, <br>My pain, and hate, and loathing, all had grown <br>Into so vast a horror that methought <br>I burst with irresistible strength away— <br>Rushed through the door and down the stairway—down <br>An endless depth—till a portcullis, hinged <br>In the tower’s basement, opened to my flight <br>It fell behind me, and my passage lay <br>By the long ripples of the rock-edged lake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then, breathless, pausing in my giddy flight, <br>I saw the lustrous lady upward pass <br>Through the lit air, with steadfast downward look <br>Of parting recognition—full of love, <br>But painless, passionless. Above the tower <br>And o’er the clouds her radiance passed away, <br>And melted into heaven’s marble dome! <br>Then fell there on my soul a sense of loss <br>So bleak, so desolate, that with a wild <br>Sleep-startling outcry, sudden I awoke <br>Awoke to find it but a wondrous dream; <br>Yet ever since to feel as if some pure <br>And guardian soul, out of the day and night, <br>Had passed for ever from the reach of love! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Charles+Harpur">Charles Harpur</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354914" data-title="The Tower of the Dream de Charles Harpur" data-description="Part I 
HOW wonderful are dreams! If they but be 
As some have said, the thin disjoining shades 
Of thoughts or feelings, long foregone or late, 
All interweaving, set in ghostly act 
And strange procession, fair, grotesque, or grim, 
By mimic fan..."></div>
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