Down through the night we drifted slow, the rays
From London's countless gas-jets starred the haze
O'er which we darkly hovered.
Broad loomed the bulk of WREN'S colossal dome
Through the grey mist, which, like a sea of foam,
The sleeping city covered.
"The year," the Shadow murmured, "nears its close.
Lo! how they swarm in slumber, friends and foes,
Kindred and utter strangers,
The millions of this Babylon, stretched beneath
The shroud of night, and drawing peaceful breath,
Unstirred by dreads and dangers."
"But not by dreams," I answered, "Canst reveal,
O Shade, the vagrant thoughts that throng and steal
About these countless pillows?
Or are these sleeping souls as shut to thee
As is the unsounded silence of the sea
To those who brave its billows?"
"Dreams?" smiled the Shadow. "What I see right well
Your eyes may not behold. Yet can I tell
Their import as unravelled
By subtler sense, whilst through these souls they pass!
What said the demon to _Don Cléophas_
As o'er Madrid they travelled?
"Such dreams as haunt us near the glimmering morn
Shadow forth truth; these through the Gates of Horn
Find passage to the sleeper.
Prophetic? Nay! But sense therein may read
The heart's desire, in pangs of love or greed;
What divination deeper?
"Yon Statesman, struggling in the nightmare's grip,
Fears he has let Time's scanty forelock slip,
And lost a great occasion
Of self-advancement. How that mouth's a-writhe
With hate, on platforms oft so blandly blithe
In golden-tongued persuasion!
"He, blindly blundering, as through baffling mist,
Is a professional philanthropist,
Rosy-gilled, genial, hearty.
A mouthing Friend of Man. He dreams he's deep
In jungles of self-interest, where creep
Sleuth-hounds of creed and party.
"That sleek-browed sleeper? 'Tis the Great Pooh-pooh,
The 'Mugwump' of the _Weekly Whillaloo_,
A most superior creature;
Too high for pity and too cold for wrath;
The pride of dawdlers on the Higher Path
Suffuses every feature.
"Contemptuous, he, of clamorous party strife,
And all the hot activities of life;
But most the Politician
He mocks--for 'meanness.' How the prig would gasp
If shown the slime-trail of that wriggling asp
In his own haunts Elysian!
"He dreams Creation, cleared of vulgar noise,
Is dedicate to calm æsthetic joys,
That he is limply lolling
Amidst the lilies that toil not nor spin,
Given quite to dandy scorn, and dainty sin,
And languor, and 'log-rolling.'
"The head which on that lace-trimmed pillow lies
Is fair as Psyche's. Yes, those snow-veiled eyes
Look Dian-pure and saintly.
Sure no Aholibah could own those lips,
Through whose soft lusciousness the bland breath slips
So fragrantly and faintly.
"That up-curved arm which bears the silken knot
Of dusky hair, is it more free from blot
Than is her soul who slumbers?
Her visions? Of 'desirable young men,'
Who crowd round her like swine round Circe's pen
In ever-swelling numbers.
"Of Love? Nay, but of lovers. Love's a lean
And impecunious urchin; lovers mean
Gifts, worship, triumph--Money!
The Golden Apple is the fruit to witch
Our modern Atalantas. To be rich,
Live on life's milk and honey;
"Stir crowds, charm royalties,--these are the things
Psyche most cares for, not her radiant wings
Or Cupid's shy caresses.
She dreams of conquests that a world applauds,
Or a Stage-wardrobe with a thousand gauds,
And half-a-hundred dresses.
"Not so, that other sleeper, stretched at length,
A spectre stripped of charm and shorn of strength,
In yon dismantled chamber.
Dreams she of girlhood's couch, the lavender
Of country sheets, a roof where pigeons whirr
And creamy roses clamber?
"Of him the red-faced swain whose rounded eyes
Dwelt on her charms in moony ecstacies?
Of pride, of shame, of sorrow?
Nay, of what now seems Nature's crowning good;
Hunger-wrought dreams are hers of food--food--food.
She'll wake from them to-morrow;
"Wake fiercely famishing, savagely sick,
The animal in man is quick, so quick
To stir and claim full forage.
Let famine parch the hero's pallid lips,
Pinch Beauty's breast, then watch the swift eclipse
Of virtue, sweetness, courage!
"Cynical? Sense leaves that to callow youth
And callous age; plain picturing of the truth
Seems cynical,--to folly.
Friend, the true cynic is the shallow mime
Who paints humanity devoid of crime,
And life supremely 'jolly,'
"See such an one, in scented sheets a-loll!
Rich fare and rosy wine have lapped his soul
In a _bon-vivant's_ slumbers.
His pen lies there, the ink is scarcely dry
With which he sketched the smug philosophy
Of Cant and Christmas Numbers.
"He dreams of--holly, home, exuberant hearts,
Picturesque poverty, the toys and tarts
Of childhood's hope?--No, verily!
'Tis a dream-world of pleasure, power, and pelf,
Visions of the apocalypse of Self,
O'er which his soul laughs merrily."
"Enough!" I cried. "The morning's earliest gleams
Will soon dissolve this pageantry of dreams.
The New Year's at our portals.
Unselfishness, and purity, and hope,
Dawn with it through the dream-world's cloudy cope,
Even on slumbering mortals."
"Granted," the Shadow answered. "Poppy-Land
Is not _all_ Appetite and Humbug bland.
Myriads of night-capped noddles
We must leave unexplored. Their owners oft
Are saints austere, or sympathisers soft,
Truth's types and Virtue's models!"
(_To be continued._)
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