A Dream
Dreamed before 1819 by Barry Cornwall (Bryan Procter)
This is merely the recollection of an actual dream
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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
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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
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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. |
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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. |
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.)
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