PART III DREAMS AND FANCIES DREAMERS Aн, there be souls none understand, Unanchor'd ships, that blow and blow, Call these not fools; the test of worth They touch on fairer shores than this. JOAQUIN MILLER (Up the Nile). FANCIES FANCIES are but streams Of vain pleasure; True joys measure, Feasting, starve, laughing, weep, Playing, smart; whilst in sleep Fools, with shadows smiling, Hopes like wind, Idle hopes, beguiling. Thoughts fly away; Time hath passed them; JOHN FORD. DRIFTING My soul to-day Is far away, Sailing the Vesuvian Bay; My winged boat, A bird afloat, Swims round the purple peaks remote. Round purple peaks A duplicated golden glow. Far, vague and dim The mountains swim; While on Vesuvius' misty brim, With outstretch'd hands The gray smoke stands, Here Ischia smiles Calm Capri waits, Her sapphire gates Beguiling to her bright estates. Over the rail My hand I trail Within the shadow of the sail ; A joy intense, The cooling sense Glides down my drowsy indolence. With dreamful eyes Where Summer sings and never dies, She glows and shines Her children, hid The cliffs amid, Are gambolling with the gambolling kid; Or down the walls, Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled, With glowing lips Sings as she skips, Or gazes at the far-off ships. Yon deep bark goes Where Traffic blows, From lands of sun to lands of snows; Sorrento swings On sunset wings, Where Tasso's spirit soars and sings. THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. BASKING WHEEL me into the sunshine, Wheel me into the shadow; There must be leaves on the woodbine. My soul lies out like a basking hound I fill to-morrow and yesterday, I am warm with the suns that have long since set, I am warm with the summers that are not yet, And like one who dreams and dozes Softly afloat on a sunny sea, Two worlds are whispering over me, And there blows a wind of roses From the backward shore to the shore before, From the shore before to the backward shore, The nevermore with the evermore As my soul lies out like the basking hound, I see a blooming world around, Springs of fresh primroses, Springs to be, and springs for me Of distant dim primroses. SYDNEY DOBELL (Home, Wounded). KUBLA KHAN IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan In stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round : But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, The shadow of the dome of pleasure It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw : Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 't would win me That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! |