It may be that the country of a dream

Illuminated, or remaining dim or dark,

Resembles that low shore where souls embark

Into the zone where shades and shadows teem;

With no more than a momentary gleam

From higher spheres.–Before them, grim and stark,

They see a vessel on that water dark,

And all surroundings threatening, ominous seem,

It may be so, that Dream Death’s brother is.

That dream, that region, all shall know some day

Or soon, the dream that merges into death.

The zone of dreams, now known, may be the way,

May be the path that surely leads beneath

To solving of these lasting mysteries.

Islands of song, where the shrill veering winds

Are never known, and never the keen frost

Has come relentlessly with shivering host

Of ghostly snowflakes, and where no man finds

Other than speech melodious from minds

Attuned to beauty that was never lost

Or by the streams of dull stupidity crossed

But yet is living as the light that blinds–

Would I were there! And het where are those isles,

Where are those archipelagoes of song?

And who can find them, or do they appear

But in the fancy’s dim and furtive smile?

Sunken into forgetfulness for long

Where are those islands that have been so near?

If you are she whom I have never known

Except in dreams under a different light

From that of day, far in the secret night,

When outward I is silent and alone;

At those still times of dreaming when are gone

Day’s sudden fits, and souls are free for flight

Even to the edge of rare and new delight–

Though the edge only till they are full grown–

If you see within dream’s chambered towers

Looking to spaces where no darkness is,

By what sign shall I know you in the hours

Of dull dark day, upon the common street?

And what shall tell me secretly that this

Is she whom I only in dreams did meet?