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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The green was all with shadows blent
Last Line: And plans the richer world to be.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hedbrooke, Andrew
Subject(s): Dreams


THE green was all with shadows blent;
The night-wind, surf-like, here and there
Broke softly on the elms and sent
Its spray of whispers down the air.

The empty streets, long silent, hid
Beneath their leafy arches lay:
Only a sleepy cricket chid,
Or distant footfall died away.

Our college feast had broken up;
No banquet rich, no spices rare,
No gleam of wine from jeweled cup,
But youth, immortal youth was there.

'T was boyish talk, -- the race crew's fate,
The jovial tutor's joke and grin,
And who would conquer in debate,
And who would wear the mystic pin.

No clutching Past our spirits held:
Our eyes looked forward; it was spring:
The fresh sap stirred, the new buds swelled --
No wonder we could feast and sing.

The small puns crackled, and ere long
The deeper thoughts would come and go;
And evermore some burst of song
Startled the slumbering rooms below.

And when we parted -- not too soon --
With shouted calls from mate to mate,
We laughed to see the tipsy moon
Rise staring, crooked-faced, so late.

We strolled, my friend and I, to where
The street becomes a wooded lane:
Talking of many a fancy fair,
And all the blossoms of the brain.

Our life should break, we said, its bars
And we would sail the seas, and there
Beneath that western crown of stars
The golden future we would share.

The sleepy elms were breathing low,
Phantoms their hollow arches filled;
The withered moon lay faint and low;
Fantastic shadows stirred and stilled.

But on I wandered, now alone,
And where the wooded lane grew steep
Sat drowsing: the weird dark had grown
A part of me; I seemed to sleep.

And all the present years were dead --
Their stormy joys, their passions sweet;
And youth and winged hope were fled
Adown the dark with silent feet.

The night wind seemed more chill to be;
The hills rose strangely bare and round:
A great bay narrowed to the sea
Beyond the city's glimmering mound.

My brain was numb, my heart was lead;
Dear faces faded far and cold;
Some were forgotten, some were dead,
And all were scattered, chill, and old.

That feast night 'mid the floating trees
Seemed ages in the silent past;
Those friendships, darling memories, --
Too pure, too warm, too sweet to last.

Among the hillslopes, wan and sad,
The marbles of a graveyard gleamed,
And ghosts were near, and I was glad
Even in my dream to think I dreamed.

But still I thought I dreamed: the west
Grew gray, and troops of fog came in,
Stalking across the city's crest
Like ghastly shapes of joy and sin.

The white dawn seemed to grow more cold;
Its bitter breath was freezing me:
I shivered, and awoke -- behold!
The bare, round hills, the muffled sea.

The mountain peak beyond the bay,
Stern, silent, as the vanquished are;
Round him the folded shadows lay,
And on his forehead was a scar.

The vision I had found so drear
Waked with me, and is with me still;
The future of my dream was here,
And I had slept on Berkeley hill.

I had arisen before unclosed
The sleeping orient's earliest gleam,
And climbed, and sat, or mused and dozed,
And dreamed this dream within a dream.

But now the full dawn comes: the sun
Breaks through the canyon with his gold,
The jocund lark-songs have begun,
The mountain's brow is clear and bold.

The good salt sea wind blows; the mist
Unveils the city shining fair;
Its floating shreds the sun has kissed
To pearls that fleck the upper air.

So drift away the moods of night,
So shines the manlier purpose free;
The breezy Present wakes in light,
And plans the richer world to be.





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