Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=533774" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Dream of Margaret</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It fell upon a summer night<br> The village folk were soundly sleeping,<br>Unconscious of the glamour white<br> In which the moon all things was steeping;<br>One window only showed a light;<br> Behind it, silent vigil keeping,<br>Sat Margaret, as one in trance—<br>The dark-eyed daughter of the Manse. <br>A flood of strange, sweet thoughts was surging<br> Her passionate heart and brain within.<br>At last, some secret impulse urging,<br> She laid aside her garment thin,<br>And from its snowy folds emerging,<br> Like Lamia from the serpent-skin,<br>She stood before her mirror bright<br>Naked, and lovely as the night. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her dark hair o’er her shoulders flowing<br> Might well have been a silken pall<br>O’er Galatea’s image glowing<br> To life and love: she was withal—<br>The lamplight o’er her radiance throwing—<br> With her high bosom virginal,<br>A woman made to madden men,<br>A Cleopatra born again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hers was the beauty dark and splendid,<br> Whose spell upon the heart of man<br>Falls swiftly as, when day is ended,<br> Night falls in lands Australian.<br>Her rich, ripe, scarlet lips, bow-bended,<br> Smiled as such ripe lips only can;<br>Her eyes, wherein strange lightnings shone,<br>Were deeper than Oblivion. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With round, white arms, whose warm caress<br> No lover knew, raised towards the ceiling,<br>She looked like some young Pythoness<br> The secrets dark of Fate revealing,<br>Or goddess in divine distress<br> To higher powers for help appealing.<br>This invocation, standing so,<br>She sang in clear, sweet tones, but low: </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Soul, from this narrow,<br> Mean life we know,<br>Speed as an arrow<br> From bended bow! <br>Seek, and discover,<br> On land or sea,<br>My destined lover,<br> Where’er he be. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">How shalt thou know him,<br> My heart’s desire?—<br>His mien will show him,<br> His glance of fire. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">High is his bearing,<br> His pride is high,<br>His spirit daring<br> Burns in his eye. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Birds have done mating;<br> The Spring is past;<br>My arms are waiting,<br> My heart beats fast. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Oh, why,” she sighed, “has Fate awarded<br> This lot to me whose heart is bold?<br>My days by trifles are recorded,<br> My suitors men whose God is gold.<br>Oh for the Heroes helmed and sworded,<br> The lovers of the days of old,<br>Who broke for ladies many a lance<br>In gallant days of old Romance! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Would I had lived in that great time when<br> A lady’s love was knight’s best boon;<br>When sword with sword made ringing rhyme, when<br> Mailed sea-kings fought from noon to moon,<br>And thought the slaughter grim no crime, when<br> The prize was golden-haired Gudrun.<br>Then I might find swords, broad and bright<br>And keen as theirs, for me to fight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“But narrow bounds my life environ,<br> And hold my eager spirit in.<br>The men I see no heart of fire in<br> Their bodies bear. My love to win<br>A man must have a will of iron,<br> A soul of flame. Then sweet were sin<br>Or Death for him!” With ardent glance<br>Thus spake the daughter of the Manse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then, with a smile, she fell asleep in<br> Her white and dainty maiden bed.<br>The chaste, cold moon alone could peep in,<br> And view her tresses dark outspread<br>Upon an arm whose clasp might keep in<br> The life of one given up for dead:<br>And, as she drifted down the stream<br>Of Slumber deep, she dreamt a dream. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">. . . . .<br>It was a banquet rich and rare,<br> The wine of France was foaming madly;<br>The proud and great of earth were there,<br> And all were slaves to serve her gladly,<br>And yet on them with haughty air<br> She gazed, half-scornfully, half-sadly;<br>The Lady of the Feast was she—<br>So ran her strange dream-fantasy. <br>A Prince was at her fair right hand,<br> And at her left a famous leader<br>Of hosts, with look of high command,<br> And—blacker than the tents of Kedar—<br>An Eastern King, barbaric, grand,<br> Sat near—their Queen they had decreed her.<br>Below the proud, the brave, the wise,<br>Sat charmed by her mesmeric eyes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then thus she spake: “O Lords of Earth!<br> Than you I know none nobler, braver;<br>And yet your fame, and rank, and birth,<br> And wealth in my sight find small favour,<br>For all too well I know their worth—<br> Long since for me they lost their savour.<br>The Spirit, fit to mate with mine,<br>Must be demoniac—or divine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“A toast!” she cried. The gallant throng<br> Sprang up, their foaming glasses clinking.<br>“Satan! The Spirit proud and strong!<br> The bravest lover to my thinking!<br>The Wine of Life I’ve drunk too long:<br> The Wine of death I now am drinking!” . . .<br>“Our Queen she was a moment since—<br>Bear forth the body!” said the Prince. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">. . . . .<br>A ghostly wind arose, all wet<br> With tears, and full of cries and wailing,<br>And wringing hands, and faces set<br> In bitter anguish unavailing;<br>It bore the soul of Margaret<br> To where a voice, in tones of railing,<br>Cried, “Spirit proud, thou hast done well!<br>Thou art within the Gates of Hell!” <br>The soul of Margaret passed slowly,<br> Yet bravely, through the Hall of Dread,<br>The roof whereof was hidden wholly<br> By black clouds hanging overhead.<br>No sound disturbed the melancholy<br> Deep silence—which itself seemed dead.<br>No wailing of the damned was heard,<br>No voice the fearful stillness stirred. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But that deep silence held in keeping<br> The secret of Eternal Woe—<br>That yet seemed like a serpent creeping<br> Around the walls. It was as though<br>The cries of pain and hopeless weeping<br> Had died out ages long ago.<br>No face was seen, no figure dread. . . .<br>Were all the damned and devils dead? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No lustre known on earth was gleaming<br> In that dread Hall, but some weird light<br>Around the pillars vast was streaming,<br> And down the vistas infinite;<br>A light like that men see in dreaming,<br> And, waking, shudder with affright.<br>Its glare a baleful splendour shed<br>For ever through the Hall of Dread. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then suddenly she was aware<br> That from the walls, and all around her,<br>In motionless and burning stare,<br> Millions of eyes glowed, that spellbound her:<br>The everlasting dumb despair<br> That spoke from them made Pity founder;<br>And, as she passed along the floor,<br>She trod on burning millions more. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For floor and pillar, roof and all,<br> Were full of eyes, for ever burning—<br>’Twas these that lit the Dreadful Hall,<br> These were the damned beyond returning,<br>Sealed up in pillar, floor, and wall,<br> Without a tongue to voice their yearning,<br>Or grief, or hate, so God might know:<br>Their eyes alone could speak their woe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her way lit by the weird light flowing<br> From those sad, awful eyes, she passed<br>To where—her terror ever growing—<br> Upon a Throne, in fire set fast,<br>And like a Rose of fire far-glowing,<br> She saw a Figure, Veiled and Vast.<br>She trembled, for she knew full well<br>She stood before the Lord of Hell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then, an instant courage taking,<br> She knelt before the burning throne,<br>And, all her hopes of heaven forsaking,<br> She cried, “O Lord, make me thine own!<br>For men, though they be of God’s making,<br> I love not. Thee I love alone.”<br>The figure veiled spake thus: “Arise,<br>O Spirit proud—and most unwise!” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And as It spake, unveiling slowly,<br> A brow of awful beauty shone<br>On Margaret’s soul—yet Melancholy<br> And Woe Eternal sat thereon.<br>But, lo! the form was woman wholly.<br> A faint smile played her lips upon,<br>As in a voice low, sweet, and level<br>She said: “My dear, I am the Devil!” </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With one wild wail of bitter scorning<br> The stricken soul of Margaret fled,<br>Sore harrowed by that dreadful warning;<br> And, shrieking, through the Hall of Dread<br>She passed . . . and woke . . . and it was morning,<br> And she was in her own white bed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Victor+James+Daley">Victor James Daley</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<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=533774" data-title="The Dream of Margaret de Victor James Daley" data-description="It fell upon a summer night
 The village folk were soundly sleeping,
Unconscious of the glamour white
 In which the moon all things was steeping;
One window only showed a light;
 Behind it, silent vigil keeping,
Sat Margaret, as one in trance—
T..."></div>
</div>
</div>