Upon their faces, reading them, I gazed,-- Reading them earnestly, like wondrous book,-- When suddenly the vapours of the dream Rose and enveloped me, and through my soul Passed with possession; will fell fast asleep. And through the portals of the spirit-land, Upon whose frontiers time and space grow dumb, Quenched like a cloud that all the roaring wind Drives not beyond the mountain top, I went, And entering, beheld them in their dream. Their world inwrapt me for the time as mine, And what befel them there, I saw, and tell. THE INNER DREAM. It was a drizzly morning where I stood. The cloud had sunk, and filled with fold on fold The chimneyed city; so the smoke rose not, But spread diluted in the cloud, and fell A black precipitate on miry streets, Where dim grey faces vision-like went by, But half-awake, half satisfied with sleep. Slave engines had begun their ceaseless growl Of labour. Iron bands and huge stone blocks That held them to their task, strained, shook, until The city trembled. Those pale-visaged forms Were hastening on to feed their groaning strength With labour to the full. Look! there they come, Poor amid poverty; she with her gown Drawn over her meek head; he trying much, But fruitless half, to shield her from the rain. They enter the wide gates, amid the jar, And clash, and shudder of the awful force That, conquering force, still vibrates on, as if With an excess of power, hungry for work. With differing strength to different tasks they part, To be the soul of knowledge unto strength; For man has eked his body out with wheels, And cranks, and belts, and levers, pinions, screws-- One body all, pervaded still with life From man the maker's will. 'Mid keen-eyed men, Thin featured and exact, his part is found; Hers where the dusk air shines with lustrous eyes.