I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay In a garden with flowers teeming. On an island I lay in a mystical bay, In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming. The ghost of a scent--had it followed me there From the place where I truly was resting? It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air, The presence of roses attesting. Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed That the place was all barren of roses-- That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed, Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses. Full many a seaman had testified How all who sailed near were enchanted, And landed to search (and in searching died) For the roses the Sirens had planted. For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed In the stead of their singing forever; But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed, Though man had discovered them never. I thought in my dream 'twas an idle tale, A delusion that mariners cherished-- That the fragrance loading the conscious gale Was the ghost of a rose long perished. I said, "I will fly from this island of woes." And acting on that decision, By that odor of rose I was led by the nose, For 'twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian. I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source Of the redolent river--directed By some supernatural, sinister force To a forest, dark, haunted, infected. And still as I threaded ('twas all in the dream That I dreamed I was dreaming) each turning There were many a scream and a sudden gleam Of eyes all uncannily burning! The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew That mirrored the red moon's crescent, And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue, Dim, wavering, phosphorescent. But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free, Led me on, though my blood was clotting, Till--ah, joy!--I could see, on the limbs of a tree, Mine enemies hanging and rotting! CAIN Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path, And gild his branded brow, that no man spill His forfeit life to balk thy holy will That spares him for the ripening of wrath. Already, lo! the red sign is descried, To trembling jurors visibly revealed: The prison doors obediently yield, The baffled hangman flings the cord aside. Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail-- Hark, how it cries against you from the ground, Like the far baying of the tireless hound. Faith! to your ear it is no nightingale. What signifies the date upon a stone? To-morrow you shall die if not to-day. What matter when the Avenger choose to slay Or soon or late the Devil gets his own. Thenceforth through all eternity you'll hold No one advantage of the later death. Though you had granted Ralph another breath Would _he_ to-day less silent lie and cold? Earth cares not, curst assassin, when you die; You never will be readier than now. Wear, in God's name, that mark upon your brow, And keep the life you purchased with a lie! AN OBITUARIAN