Part I 
HOW wonderful are dreams! If they but be 
As some have said, the thin disjoining shades 
Of thoughts or feelings, long foregone or late, 
All interweaving, set in ghostly act 
And strange procession, fair, grotesque, or grim, 
By mimic fancy; wonderful no less 
Are they though this be true and wondrous more 
Is she, who in the dark, and stript of sense, 
Can wield such sovereignty?the Queen of Art! 
For what a cunning painter is she then, 
Who hurriedly embodying, from the waste 
Of things memorial littering life?s dim floor, 
The forms and features, manifold and quaint, 
That crowd the timeless vistas of a dream, 
Fails in no stroke, but breathes Pygmalion-like 
A soul of motion into all her work; 
And doth full oft in magic mood inspire 
Her phantom creatures with more eloquent tones 
Than ever broke upon a waking ear. 

But are they more? True glimpses oft, though vague, 
Over that far unnavigable sea 
Of mystic being, where the impatient soul 
Is sometimes wont to stray and roam at large? 
No answer comes. Yet are they wonderful 
However we may rank them in our lore, 
And worthy some fond record are these dreams 
That with so capable a wand can bring 
Back to the faded heart the rosy flush 
And sweetness of a long-fled love, or touch 
The eyes of an old enmity with tears 
Of a yet older friendship; or restore 
A world-lost mate, or reunite in joy 
The living and the dead!?can, when so wills 
Their wand?s weird wielder, whatsoe?er it be, 
Lift up the fallen?fallen however low! 
Give youth unto the worn, enrich the poor; 
Build in the future higher than the hope 
Of power, when boldest, ever dared to soar; 
Annul the bars of space, the dens of time, 
Giving the rigid and cold-clanking chain 
Which force, that grey iniquity, hath clenched 
About its captive, to relent,?yea, stretch 
Forth into fairy-land, or melt like wax 
In that fierce life whose spirit lightens wide 
Round freedom, seated on her mountain throne. 

But not thus always are our dreams benign; 
Oft are they miscreations?gloomier worlds, 
Crowded tempestuously with wrongs and fears, 
More ghastly than the actual ever knew, 
And rent with racking noises, such as should 
Go thundering only through the wastes of hell. 

Yes, wonderful are dreams: and I have known 
Many most wild and strange. And once, long since, 
As in the death-like mystery of sleep 
My body lay impalled, my soul arose 
And journeyed outward in a wondrous dream. 
In the mid-hour of a dark night, methought 
I roamed the margin of a waveless lake, 
That in the knotted forehead of the land 
Deep sunken, like a huge Cyclopean eye, 
Lidless and void of speculation, stared 
Glassily up?for ever sleepless?up 
At the wide vault of heaven; and vaguely came 
Into my mind a mystic consciousness 
That over against me, on the farther shore 
Which yet I might not see, there stood a tower. 

The darkness darkened, until overhead 
Solidly black the starless heaven domed, 
And earth was one wide blot;?when, as I looked, 
A light swung blazing from the tower (as yet 
Prophesied only in my inner thought), 
And brought at once its rounded structure forth 
Massive and tall out of the mighty gloom. 
On the broad lake that streaming radiance fell, 
Through the lit fluid like a shaft of fire, 
Burning its sullen depths with one red blaze. 

Long at that wild light was I gazing held 
In speechless wonder, till I thence could feel 
A strange and thrillingly attractive power; 
My bodily weight seemed witched away, aloft 
I mounted, poised within the passive air, 
Then felt I through my veins a branching warmth, 
The herald of some yet unseen content, 
The nearness of some yet inaudible joy, 
As if some spell of golden destiny 
Lifted me onwards to the fateful tower. 



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Part II 
High up the tower, a circling balcony 
Emporched a brazen door. The silver roof 
Rested on shafts of jet, and ivory work 
Made a light fence against the deep abyss. 
Before that portal huge a lady stood 
In radiant loveliness, serene and bright, 
Yet as it seemed expectant; for as still 
She witched me towards her, soft she beckon?d me 
With tiny hand more splendid than a star; 
And then she smiled, not as a mortal smiles 
With visible throes, to the mere face confined, 
But with her whole bright influence all at once 
In gracious act, as the Immortals might, 
God-happy, or as smiles the morning, when 
Its subtle lips in rosy beauty part 
Under a pearly cloud, and breathe the while 
A golden prevalence of power abroad, 
That taketh all the orient heaven and earth 
Into the glory of its own de