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A Dream

Dreamed before 1819 by Barry Cornwall (Bryan Procter)

This is merely the recollection of an actual dream

The night was gloomy. Through the skies of June
Rolled the eternal moon
Midst dark and heavy clouds that bore
A shadowy likeness to those fabled things
That sprung of old from man's imaginings.
Each seemed a fierce reality; some wore
The forms of sphinx and hippogriff, or seemed
Nourished among the wonders of the deep,
And wilder than the poet ever dreamed;
And there were cars--steeds with their proud necks bent;
Tower, and temple, and broken continent;
And all, as upon a sea,
In the blue ether floated silently.
I lay upon my bed and sank to sleep;
And then I fancied that I rode upon
The waters, and had power to call
Up people who had lived in ages gone,
And scenes and stories half-forgot--and all
That on my young imagination
Had come like fairy visions, and departed.
And ever by me a broad current passed
Slowly, from which at times up started
Dim scenes and ill-defined shapes. At last
I bade the billows render up their dead,
And all their wild inhabitants; and I
Summoned the spirits who perished,
Or took their stations in the starry sky,
When Jove himself bowed his Saturnian head
Before the One Divinity.

First I saw a landscape fair
Towering in the clear blue air,
Like Ida's woody summits, and sweet fields,
Where all that nature yields
Flourishes. Three proud shapes were seen,
Standing upon the green
Like Olympian queens descended.
One was unadorned, and one
Wore her golden tresses bound
With simple flowers; the third was crowned,
And from amidst her raven hair,
Like stars, imperial jewels shone.
Not one of those figures divine
But might have sat in Juno's chair,
And smiled in great equality
On Jove, though the blue skies were shaken;


Or, with superior aspect, taken
From Hebe's hand nectarean wine.
And that Dardanian boy was there
Whom pale Oenone loved; his hair
Was black, and curled his temples round;
His limbs were free and his forehead fair,
And, as he stood on a rising ground,
And back his dark locks proudly tossed,
A shepherd youth he looked, but trod
On the green sward like a god -
Most like Apollo when he played,
'Fore Midas, in the Phrygian shade,
With Pan, and to the Sylvan lost.

And now from out the watery floor
A city rose (and well she wore
Her beauty), and stupendous walls,
And towers that touched the stars, and halls
Pillared with whitest marble, whence
Palace on lofty palace sprung;
And over all rich gardens hung,
Where, amongst silver waterfalls,
Cedars and spice-trees and green bowers,

And sweet winds playing with all the flowers
Of Persia and of Araby,
Walked princely shapes; some with an air
Like warriors, some like ladies fair
Listening, and, amidst all, the king
Nebuchadnezzar rioting
In supreme magnificence.
This was famous Babylon. That glorious vision passed on.
And then I heard the laurel-branches sigh
That still grow where the bright-eyed muses walked;
And Pelion shook his piny locks, and talked
Mournfully to the fields of Thessaly.
And there I saw, piercing the deep blue sky,
And radiant with his diadem of snow,
Crowned Olympus; and the hills below
Looked like inferior spirits tending round
His pure supremacy; and a sound
Went rolling onwards through the sunny calm,
As if immortal voices then had spoken,
And, with rich noises, broken
The silence which that holy place had bred.

I knelt - and as I knelt, haply in token
Of thanks, there fell a honeyed shower of balm,
And the imperial mountain bowed his hoary head.
And then came one who on the Nubian sands
Perished for love; and with him the wanton queen
Egyptian in her state was seen;
And how she smiled, and kissed his willing hands,
And said she would not love, and swore to die,
And laughed upon the Roman Antony.
Oh matchless Cleopatra! never since
Has one, and never more
Shall one like thee tread on the Egypt shore,
Or lavish such royal magnificence;
Never shall one laugh, love or die like thee,
Or own so sweet a witchery;
And, brave Mark Antony, that thou could'st give
Half the wide world to live
With that enchantress, did become thee well;
For love is wiser than ambition:
Queen and thou, lofty triumvir, fare ye well.
And then I heard the sullen waters roar,
And saw them cast their surf upon the strand,
And then, rebounding toward some far-seen land,
They washed and washed its melancholy shore,
And the terrific spirits, bred
In the sea-caverns, moved by those fierce jars,
Rose up like giants from their watery bed,
And shook their silver hair against the stars.
Then bursts like thunder, joyous outcries wild
Sounds as from trumpets, and from drums,
And music, like the lulling noise that comes
From nurses when they hush their charge to sleep,
Came in confusion from the deep.
Methought one told me that a child
Was that night unto the great Neptune born;
And then old Triton blew his curléd horn,
And the Leviathan lashed the foaming seas,
And the wanton nereides
Came up like phantoms from their coral halls,
And laughed and sung like tipsy Bacchanals,
Till all the fury of the ocean broke
Upon my ear. I trembled and awoke.
Drawing of Bryan Procter ('Barry Cornwall').

EDITOR'S NOTE

"Barry Cornwall" (Bryan Procter) was a Romantic poet, a friend and biographer of Charles Lamb (who envied his vivid dreams, though Lamb had fairly strange ones himself).

You may doubt it's a real dream--this rambling historical tour through the ancient Mediterranean world, and in chronological order--the first scene on Mt Ida is the Judgment of Paris (though he's not named) circa 1250 BCE; then we get King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylon of the 580s BCE, then Antony & Cleopatra in the 30s BCE. Awfully organized for a dream.

But it's the only piece Cornwall claims was a true dream, and I've had occasional time-tours in dreams, so I'm in no position to doubt him. Lamb didn't.

Cornwall says "my young imagination"; that plus the tone & subject make me suspect the dream dates to 1800 or even a bit earlier, though written up as a poem years later (the line "And then old Triton blew his curléd horn" is surely cribbed from Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much With Us", so it must be after 1807, when that was written; likely c.1810 or '15. But I'm guessing.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Dramatic Scenes by "Barry Cornwall" (1819 edition; 1857 ed. lacks it. But poetry sites have it.)



LISTS AND LINKS: nocturnes - clouds - time travel - the past - gods & goddesses - kings & queens - love & war - underwater dreams - nightmares - Charles Lamb's dreams: The Child Angel & Dream Children

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