The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty - A Dream

I would I could weave in         The colour, the wonder,     The song I conceive in         My heart while I ponder,          And show how it came like         The magi of old     Whose chant was a flame like         The dawn's voice of gold;          Who dreams followed near them         A murmur of birds,     And ear still could hear them         Unchanted in words.          In words I can only         Reveal thee my heart,     Oh, Light of the Lonely,         The shining impart.          Between the twilight and the dark     The lights danced up before my eyes:     I found no sleep or peace or rest,     But dreams of stars and burning skies.          I knew the faces of the day--     Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair,     I know you not nor yet your home,     The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?          I passed a dream of gloomy ways     Where ne'er did human feet intrude:     It was the border of a wood,     A dreadful forest solitude.          With wondrous red and fairy gold     The clouds were woven o'er the ocean;     The stars in fiery aether swung     And danced with gay and glittering motion.          A fire leaped up within my heart     When first I saw the old sea shine;     As if a god were there revealed     I bowed my head in awe divine;          And long beside the dim sea marge     I mused until the gathering haze     Veiled from me where the silver tide     Ran in its thousand shadowy ways.          The black night dropped upon the sea:     The silent awe came down with it:     I saw fantastic vapours flit     As o'er the darkness of the pit.          When, lo! from out the furthest night     A speck of rose and silver light     Above a boat shaped wondrously     Came floating swiftly o'er the sea.          It was no human will that bore     The boat so fleetly to the shore     Without a sail spread or an oar.          The Pilot stood erect thereon     And lifted up his ancient face,     (Ancient with glad eternal youth     Like one who was of starry race.)          His face was rich with dusky bloom;     His eyes a bronze and golden fire;     His hair in streams of silver light     Hung flamelike on his strange attire          Which starred with many a mystic sign,     Fell as o'er sunlit ruby glowing:     His light flew o'er the waves afar     In ruddy ripples on each bar     Along the spiral pathways flowing.          It was a crystal boat that chased     The light along the watery waste,     Till caught amid the surges hoary     The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.          Oh, never such a glory was:     The pale moon shot it through and through     With light of lilac, white and blue:     And there mid many a fairy hue     Of pearl and pink and amethyst,     Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams     And wove around a wonder-mist.          The Pilot lifted beckoning hands;     Silent I went with deep amaze     To know why came this Beam of Light     So far along the ocean ways     Out of the vast and shadowy night.          "Make haste, make haste!" he cried. "Away!     A thousand ages now are gone.     Yet thou and I ere night be sped     Will reck no more of eve or dawn."          Swift as the swallow to its nest     I leaped:    my body dropt right down:     A silver star I rose and flew.     A flame burned golden at his breast:     I entered at the heart and knew     My Brother-Self who roams the deep,     Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.          The ruby body wrapped us round     As twain in one:    we left behind     The league-long murmur of the shore     And fleeted swifter than the wind.          The distance rushed upon the bark:     We neared unto the mystic isles:     The heavenly city we could mark,     Its mountain light, its jewel dark,     Its pinnacles and starry piles.          The glory brightened:    "Do not fear;     For we are real, though what seems     So proudly built above the waves     Is but one mighty spirit's dreams.          "Our Father's house hath many fanes;     Yet enter not and worship not,     For thought but follows after thought     Till last consuming self it wanes.          "The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings     Its glamour o'er the light of day:     A music in the sunlight sings     To call the dreamy hearts away     Their mighty hopes to ease awhile:     We will not go the way of them:     The chant makes drowsy those who seek     The sceptre and the diadem.          "The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws     Its magic round us all the night;     What things the heart would be, it sees     And chases them in endless flight.     Or coiled in phantom visions there     It builds within the halls of fire;     Its dreams flash like the peacock's wing     And glow with sun-hues of desire.     We will not follow in their ways     Nor heed the lure of fay or elf,     But in the ending of our days     Rest in the high Ancestral Self."          The boat of crystal touched the shore,     Then melted flamelike from our eyes,     As in the twilight drops the sun     Withdrawing rays of paradise.          We hurried under arched aisles     That far above in heaven withdrawn     With cloudy pillars stormed the night,     Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.          I would have lingered then--but he--     "Oh, let us haste:    the dream grows dim,     Another night, another day,     A thousand years will part from him          "Who is that Ancient One divine     From whom our phantom being born     Rolled with the wonder-light around     Had started in the fairy morn.          "A thousand of our years to him     Are but the night, are but the day,     Wherein he rests from cyclic toil     Or chants the song of starry sway.          "He falls asleep:    the Shadowy Fount     Fills all our heart with dreams of light:     He wakes to ancient spheres, and we     Through iron ages mourn the night.     We will not wander in the night     But in a darkness more divine     Shall join the Father Light of Lights     And rule the long-descended line."          Even then a vasty twilight fell:     Wavered in air the shadowy towers:     The city like a gleaming shell,     Its azures, opals, silvers, blues,     Were melting in more dreamy hues.     We feared the falling of the night     And hurried more our headlong flight.     In one long line the towers went by;     The trembling radiance dropt behind,     As when some swift and radiant one     Flits by and flings upon the wind     The rainbow tresses of the sun.          And then they vanished from our gaze     Faded the magic lights, and all     Into a Starry Radiance fell     As waters in their fountain fall.          We knew our time-long journey o'er     And knew the end of all desire,     And saw within the emerald glow     Our Father like the white sun-fire.          We could not say if age or youth     Were on his face:    we only burned     To pass the gateways of the Day,     The exiles to the heart returned.          He rose to greet us and his breath,     The tempest music of the spheres,     Dissolved the memory of earth,     The cyclic labour and our tears.     In him our dream of sorrow passed,     The spirit once again was free     And heard the song the Morning-Stars     Chant in eternal revelry.          This was the close of human story;     We saw the deep unmeasured shine,     And sank within the mystic glory     They called of old the Dark Divine.          Well it is gone now,         The dream that I chanted:     On this side the dawn now         I sit fate-implanted.          But though of my dreaming         The dawn has bereft me,     It all was not seeming         For something has left me.          I fell in some other         World far from this cold light     The Dream Bird, my brother,         Is rayed with the gold light.          I too in the Father         Would hide me, and so,     Bright Bird, to foregather         With thee now I go. --December 15, 1896