"Then do as you are commanded," the soul replied. And wearily the body
took a pen again. Then the soul spoke merrily as he looked through the
window. "There is a mountain lifting sheer above London, part crystal and
part myst. Thither the dreamers go when the sound of the traffic has
fallen. At first they scarcely dream because of the roar of it, but before
midnight it stops, and turns, and ebbs with all its wrecks. Then the
dreamers arise and scale the shimmering mountain, and at its summit find
the galleons of dream. Thence some sail East, some West, some into the
Past and some into the Future, for the galleons sail over the years as
well as over the spaces, but mostly they head for the Past and the olden
harbours, for thither the sighs of men are mostly turned, and the
dream-ships go before them, as the merchantmen before the continual
trade-winds go down the African coast. I see the galleons even now raise
anchor after anchor; the stars flash by them; they slip out of the night;
their prows go gleaming into the twilight of memory, and night soon lies
far off, a black cloud hanging low, and faintly spangled with stars, like
the harbour and shore of some low-lying land seen afar with its harbour
lights."
Dream after dream that soul related as he sat there by the window. He told
of tropical forests seen by unhappy men who could not escape from London,
and never would--forests made suddenly wondrous by the song of some
passing bird flying to unknown eyries and singing an unknown song. He saw
the old men lightly dancing to the tune of elfin pipes--beautiful dances
with fantastic maidens--all night on moonlit imaginary mountains; he heard
far off the music of glittering Springs; he saw the fairness of blossoms
of apple and may thirty years fallen; he heard old voices--old tears came
glistening back; Romance sat cloaked and crowned upon southern hills, and
the soul knew him.
One by one he told the dreams of all that slept in that street. Sometimes
he stopped to revile the body because it worked badly and slowly. Its
chill fingers wrote as fast as they could, but the soul cared not for
that. And so the night wore on till the soul heard tinkling in Oriental
skies far footfalls of the morning.
"See now," said the soul, "the dawn that the dreamers dread. The sails of
light are paling on those unwreckable galleons; the mariners that steer
them slip back into fable and myth; that other sea the traffic is turning
now at its ebb, and is about to hide its pallid wrecks, and to come
swinging back, with its tumult, at the flow. Already the sunlight flashes
in the gulfs behind the east of the world; the gods have seen it from
their palace of twilight that the built above the sunrise; they warm their
hands at its glow as it streams through their gleaming arches, before it
reaches the world; all the gods are there that have ever been, and all the
gods that shall be; they sit there in the morning, chanting and praising
Man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account