The Dark Chateau

In dreams a dark chteau     Stands ever open to me, In far ravines dream-waters flow,     Descending soundlessly; Above its peaks the eagle floats,     Lone in a sunless sky; Mute are the golden woodland throats     Of the birds flitting by. No voice is audible. The wind     Sleeps in its peace. No flower of the light can find     Refuge 'neath its trees; Only the darkening ivy climbs     Mingled with wilding rose, And cypress, morn and evening, time's     Black shadow throws. All vacant, and unknown;     Only the dreamer steps From stone to hollow stone,     Where the green moss sleeps, Peers at the river in its deeps,     The eagle lone in the sky, While the dew of evening drips,     Coldly and silently. Would that I could press in! -     Into each secret room; Would that my sleep-bright eyes could win     To the inner gloom; Gaze from its high windows,     Far down its mouldering walls, Where amber-clear still Lethe flows,     And foaming falls. But ever as I gaze,     From slumber soft doth come Some touch my stagnant sense to raise     To its old earthly home; Fades then that sky serene;     And peak of ageless snow; Fades to a paling dawn-lit green,     My dark chteau.