_And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
Are where thy footstep gleams.
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams._
E. A. POE.
I dreamed I was in a great garden full of flowers, and beautiful
trees. The lawns were smooth, with never a daisy to break the green
of them, and the shadows in the moonlight lay dark upon the ground.
“For I was there at night, and there were many others with me,
dream-people, who I couldn’t see. But I knew we were all gathered
together to be put to some great test. I can see the night sky now
above me, as I saw it in my dream, with the moon like a shining
shield, and never a star.
“And the test we were put to was to count the flowers of the
Solomon’s Seal.
“Do you know the plant, and the beauty of it? The flowers hang down
in little bunches from a green stem that makes a rainbow span. I
saw the white flowers as I bent down to seek them, and ten of them
I counted as they hung there. And all the time that I was counting,
there were small voices about me, like thin breaths of air.
“‘Count us, count us,’ they were saying; ‘different and yet the same;
count us.’
“It seemed to me there might be some more flowers hidden among the
leaves. And I turned the leaves back with my hands, seeking. I can
feel the coolness, and the firmness, of them now. But I could find
no more flowers than those ten. Yet the thin voices were still
whispering, ‘Count us, count us.’
“Then in the great clearness of the moonlight I saw that everything
in the garden had its shadow, every flower I had counted was
shadowed black upon the ground; and together I made twenty, and the
clamouring of the voices ceased. Then in my dream it seemed to me
the time had come when we must answer. We must have been standing
in a long line, for I heard the voices of the many who were there,
coming nearer and nearer, like a soft wind blowing through a wood.
‘Ten--ten--ten--ten,’ sounded the answers, and some one who seemed
to be standing at my shoulder said ‘Ten.’ But when my turn came, I
was filled with the strength of a great spirit, and cried out so that
my voice filled all the hollow of the sky.
“‘Twenty, I make it!’ I called out--‘Twenty! for substance is shadow,
and shadow is substance, and what is--seems, and what seems--is.’
“I d’ know, I’m sure, if that makes sense or not, my dears; but I was
given Solomon’s Seal for my wisdom.”
The children sat quietly while she told her story. Even if they did
not understand, they liked her voice. The logs glowed warmly beneath
the hanging kettle, and the feather of steam would float out, and
curl upwards from the kettle’s spout. But best of all her stories
they liked one that told of a strange adventure in her dream.
“That was when I was travelling in a distant land, my dears, when I
was cast out for dead upon the desert. But the life in my spirit was
hidden and secret, and the flame was not blown out. I was sent on a
great mission away in a foreign land; I had papers with me, and I
knew in my dream if I were discovered, it would be my life they would
take. Then as my dream went on, I knew I was betrayed into the hands
of my enemies, and on the morrow I was to die.
“That was a great land I was in, a land of dead races; a land of
desert sand, and ruined temples, and bright colours, and blue skies.
I and many others were to come by our deaths in a strange fashion. It
was this, look.
“We were all taken up to stand on the great head of a statue.
Terrible it was in its sightless eyes, its heavy plaited hair,
and its paws of a creature. But I had no time to feel afraid, or
astonished. I was there to die. So large was this great statue that
as many as thirty people, or more, could stand upon its head, and
those who had to die were to leap from the head, down into the depths
below. And as I stood there with the other prisoners, I looked, and
saw the people walking about in their colours, far down, like spilt
beads upon the earth. Every one that leaped from that statue had to
cry aloud some great load cry. And I saw them leap and fall, crushed
upon the earth beneath us.
“Then it came to the turn of two before me, then one before me, then
it was my turn to leap. And suddenly I felt the spirit surge within
me, and I thought, ‘They shall see that I, at least, know how to
die.’ And I sent my voice out so that my throat almost burst with the
strength of it, and I leaped.
“The air tore at my ears as I fell, and there was a rushing sound,
and the sun reeled in the sky before me, with blood-red bars crossing
the yellow of his light. Then the ground seemed to rise up and smite
me, and I lay all bruised and broken from my fall. I felt the blood
burst out in warm gouts in breathing, and I said, ‘I am broken to
pieces. I am dying. Soon I shall be dead.’ And then I became aware of
a voice speaking to me, as if through grey clouds that were around
me. ‘Lie still,’ said the voice, ‘and they will think us dead like
the others, and by this we may escape; lie still.’
“I knew then I was not dead but broken, and I dreaded moving because
of the sickening sense of the red stream that welled from my open
lips.
“Only my spirit was kept from fainting by the sound of that voice.
‘Life,’ it whispered; ‘we are not dead. Life.’
“And surely for hours the bodies fell from a height around us, and I
lay listening to the sound. And when at last that sound was finished,
they brought carts to take us away. I was thrown in among the dead
bodies--taken up and thrown in, like any refuse that must be carted
away. My dears, this happened long ago; this happened--God knows
it was no dream. And I lay in that earth with the dead around me,
the dead already cold. Eyes glazed and open, lay near me, and hands
with the fingers stiff upon them, thrust out against my face. Flung
in they were, these dead bodies. Is there anything worse than to be
alive among the dead?
“So I lay under this load of corpses, now straining my head to get a
crevice to breathe through, now striving to rid myself of some cold
body lying on my face.
“At last the carts started. Slowly they were driven from the town.
Through a long night journey we travelled till we came to a stand.
I heard the men come round, and release the pins that hold a cart
steady, and when these were loosened, the heap of corpses was shot
out upon the ground.
“Once more upon the earth I lay with the dead around me, and I saw
the carts making their slow journey returning to the town. The wheels
sounded more and more distantly, till at last all was still.
“And the sky changed from grey dusk to the flush of dawn, then a long
streak of red, and I lay watching it. And in that dawn my companion
and I, rose up from among the dead bodies, and took our way across
the plain.
“We exchanged no words; we had but the one thought between us--to
leave the dead, to get away.
“And directing our steps across the open desert, we walked silently,
the sand muffling our footsteps as we went.”