THE LATHE OF MORPHEUS
OR
THE DREAM SONG

THE
LATHE OF MORPHEUS
OR
THE DREAM SONG

A TRIBUTE
TO
B. C.
FROM
E. M.

PRIVATELY PRINTED
1915

H. G. Commin,
Bookseller,
Bournemouth.

CONTENTS

Part I.
TO BRIDGET.
THE INVOCATION.

Though oft-times ill-sifting memory with deft digits thickly draws

Ashen grey curtains thwart my vagrant brain;

She ne’er from me can hide thy face and form,

Nor cloaked Oblivion, from streams of Lethe borne.

Ensnare in sable trammel, behind her basalt doors

Thy eyes, thy lips, thy smile,—that ere again

My gaping senses steep

And lull to fragrant sleep.

Fiercer in Morning Sun than in turgid hues of Night

Calcined and adust, parching my thirsting sight

Thy welcome form appears,

Grief-giving while it cheers.

Bridget! Unreal! Dead phantom of a form

Yet living, breathing—sneering, wreathed in olive scorn

Haunt not my seered soul pierced by thy secret sting;

Death to a pulsing throb, Life to a pulseless thing!

Now through the Gardens of Sleep, I see thy lovely mystic face

Pale ’gainst the scandent tendrils and resin-bleeding cones

Paler than ivory white, colder than bleachened bones,

Pallid and alburnous, fired for a lingering space

By eyes that never human in earthy regions saw.

Let me yet behold thee, far fairer than ere of yore!

For ’neath that polished painted mask of seeming deadened Love

I know some poignant passion must course in sinuous stream

Plashing with crystal foam in lustrous realms above,

From a sea, where the gods’ romances are woven in wondrous dream.

Bridget unmask! speak to me, awake, and radiant rise!

Phœnix-inspired flying from former fires into cerulean skies!

Though still wrapped in the scented cerements of the mummy I thought was you

I would gaze on the risen Bridget, as a being both real and true;

Nothing strange or new—just true.

In the place of a ghost of a woman, whose self I never knew

In the place of an empty phantom as cold as the summer dew.

Part II.
THE GARDEN OF SLEEP.

Lo! there in the Garden I behold my princess

Yea! there in the Garden of Sleep.

There in the Garden I fain would caress

My lovely princess

In the Garden of Sleep.

’Neath the jasamine trees, and the lilac and rose

There stands my princess—so close—yes so close.

Alloyed with the lilies—the orange pink lilies—

Among the roses and lilies

Stands my azure princess

Lo! there in the Garden of Sleep.

Midst the trembling narcissus and cadmium dillies

Midst the daf-o-down-dilies

Glides my faëry princess

In her gold-azure dress.

Veridian the foliage packed heavy in creepers,

Olive the pine tree with sap-oozing cones;

Each rustling leaf bestirring the sleepers,

The brown buzzing bees and the resonant drones.

Dreaming with legs all bespattered with pollen;

—The passionate kiss of a love giving flower—

While velvety moths in flight silent and solemn,

Creep dreamily forth from each scent-giving bower;

And purple clematis with quivering tendrils

Drink in the pure air, and sleep-whisp’ring wind

Sad pale perfumed firs wave feathery branches

In Columbine’s fingers gently clasped and entwined

In Columbine’s pensile and pale greeny tendrils

There in the Garden of Sleep.

Where silver fountains leap

Hid in a deep recess

There roams my dear princess

’Neath the Castle of Dreams.

Sunk there in a carpet of starwort and cress,

Where myrtle and eglantines gracefully sway

Anent the feet of my lovely princess

Lies a large bronzen bowl where the dragonflies play

In the sunbeams that blue amber lotus caress.

Filled to the brim through a lazuli funnel,

Fed from the meads by a soft lisping brook;

Pours itself forth int’ a silvery runnel,

Which laughing, flows on through that cool shaded nook,

Cool as the shadows that lie in the dress

Of my peerless princess;

Blue and crystal the bronzen bowl, reflecting the vault above

Sapphire and crystal the red bronze bowl, reflecting the face of my love

Red and gold the glittering carp that sport in the waters below

Ruby and gold the shimmering carp—the hues of a sunset glow.

White, ivory-white, and golden green are the lights that fall from the lilies

Golden-orange and orange-green, the shades of the daf-o-down-dilies.

But far more fair in that fair recess

Are the ivory hands of my pale princess

—There in the Garden of Sleep—

And her lustrous eyes of ebon black

Curtained with lashes so silken and sleek,

The poise of her head, the line of her back,

Arched, as she culls the blood red rose

What a wonderful, classical, graceful pose

One tapering finger wantonly plays

With a lambent jewel that gently sways

O’er her breast.

In that Garden of Rest,

Where all that is purest, tenderest—best

One with another loving contest

For a smile or a kiss or a passing caress

From my azure princess.

Part III.
[*]THE LATHE OF MORPHEUS.

Hid in a tenebrose valley veiled by the mushroom pine,

Aloof in the lathe of Morpheus—I know a sombre tomb

Engraved on its brazen portal is enchiseled this mystic sign:

“Behold thou vagrant pilgrim, dark Morphia’s Hetacomb.”

Seizing the knocker in my outstretched hand

I crashed the head athwart the leaden sign;

An answering echo wandered o’er the Land

Breaking in thunderous knocks, a pale reflex of mine.

Slowly before my wondering eyes the door

Broke in a thousand fragments to the floor;

Disclosing a gaping orifice with rusty mildewed rim

The entrance to a stairway, torturous, long and grim,

Whose polished steps trailed from the sight to denser gloom within.

Then passing ’twixt two monoliths engraved one “Death,” one “Sin.”

I heard in the chasm below me the Marid’s enchanted hymn,

And I felt the chill of their icy breath,

As they dully intoned that Song of Death:—

“Black and green; with sober sheen;

They wander to and fro.

But none of mortal birth may glean

The rhythm; or why ’tis so.”

Aghast by these secret words of power,

From my forehead dripped an acrid shower

Of clotted sweat, and my trembling knees

Quaked together, like nude limbs of trees

Bark and knock on a wintry night,

For the pith of my soul was bathed in fright.

So catching my breath for a mighty shout,

I felt my life with my breath go out.

Yet only a whisper hissed forth from my lips,

Breaking between my chattering teeth in strangled shivering lisps

As I wailed to the dimness within;

“O! ye who haunt these fœtid bowers, cold Winter has gone and Spring

Hath come with her flowers.”

But all that I heard in answer, up the ebon polished stair

Was the Deathless chant of the Marids; the Jinn with the shimmering hair;

That woeful hymn of the Marids—that canticle of despair.

“Scarlet and blue in radiant hue

They wander through Space and Time.

But none of mortal birth, save Thou

May know the rhythm or rhyme.

Great is Suleyman Daood’s son!

Great is Allah! the Only One!

When Life is lost, then Death is won.

But by virtue of the sacred fire

Here be the few who may ne’er expire.” ...

Faint and weary with soul oppressed,

I was fearful to list for the fateful rest

Of the Song of Death—the dirge they sang—

That ne’er had been learned by mortal man.

So grasping the banister lest I fell,

Madly I shouted: “Hail, Jans of Hell!

Servants of Iblees! Peace where ye dwell!

Ye chanters of songs that none may tell,

Ye who shun the light of God’s good day,

Answer me! set me on my way

Down these labyrinth corridors of this Tomb of fire;

Built by Magins round smoking Pyre

Where Vathek offered through lust of Power

All the youth of his City,

Without sorrow or pity,

To the gluted ghool who on evil hour

Came to his Palace with Satan’s dower.”

And still no answer—but louder grew

That fearful hymn that no mortal knew.

And through the transcendent stillness of the air

I saw their beryl eyes and gleaming hair;

Each holding aloft one leprous quivering hand

The other chained o’er the heart by a molten burning band.

And up from the darkness, deep down beneath,

There came the murmur of voices and the moving of teeth.

Then as if at a sign, or previously bidden,

The two pillars close and the entrance is hidden,

And from corner to corner the vaulting is riven.

The banisters vanish to float thinly away,

The black sheeny steps coil, totter and sway,

All is Darkness around, above and below,

And blood-chilling fingers brush my forehead, like snow;

A hurricane rose, and a wild whistling wind

Swept up from beneath, and in it entwined

Were the shadowy Marids with luminous eyes,

And a stench like to woodlands where the undergrowth dies

Assailed the dank ether; whilst thousands of flies,

The minions of Iblees sped whirling around;

And flesh semi-fermented smoked on the ground.

Then in the midst of this utter distress

I breathed forth the NAME of my azure Princess.

...

To me awaking from this evil dream,

Rose tinted morn appeared in fulgent light,

While great Apollo with his spears did seem

To be dispelling all the hosts of night,

Proud Helios in chariot thwart the sky,

Coursing through fleecy clouds kept on his way,

And in the dimmer distance, I descry

—Where Night her maukish raiment casts away—

A crowd of fleeing objects, gleaming hair

Flying behind them in the morning air.

But brimming joys my sorrowing senses greet,

For ’midst the blossoms, sun-kissed at my feet,

There where the leaping springs the thirsty banks caress

Appeared the vision of my pale Princess.

[*] Lathe (lath)—Anglo-Saxon laeth: a division of a county. Here the Division belonging to Morpheus in the County of Sleep, itself a division of the Realm of Unconsciousness.

Part IV.
THE VISION GLORIOUS.

When Luna o’er the vault would fain hold sway

Striving the steeds of Phœbus to assay;

And he, the drifting racks with gilded spear had riven;

With ochreous steeds coursing the plain of Heaven,

Bore high aloft his flambent crimson bowl

Steering on ruddy Hesperus for goal.

And far behind his chariot’s dust did leave

That frail ætherial gleam—the Star of eve.

I, wearied with the day’s fatiguing sorrow

Called to proud Helios “Hasten thou the morrow”!

Then clapped dim eyes upon the scene around

The sullen austere hills, the humid misty ground

Sad that the spectral lances of the moon

Essayed the glowing firmament so soon.

For when tired Earth the arms of Day is leaving

For those of sterner Night, yet fondly cleaving

Still to Sunshine’s fingers, rose tipped as they lie

Aslant the woods, the valleys, ground and sky,

The heart of man,—in that calm solitude—alone

Sighs for his faded hopes now cold as stone

Weeps for his sins, hoping yet to atone

For actions past, unalterable—and done—

Performed, accomplished, finished—everyone—

Then inly prays with eager expectation

To Holy patron Saint,—for his salvation—

With some such thoughts as these, I sadly gazed

Over the moonlit garden’s scented air

And peering through the mist, I stood amazed,

For—lo! my patron Saint was standing there.

Gabled in raiment pale-azure as the sea

Of Northern climes, thus she appeared to me;

Azure and Silver, like to a frozen tear

Shed into Ocean by some arctic Mear;

Holy her features—haloed her raven hair,

Black eyebrows curving over dreaming eyes

She stood awhile in ecstacy, radiant, passing fair;

No one more lovely being beyond our earthy skies

Stirred by this hallowed mirage, my heart gave forth a cry,

“Blessed St. Bridget save me! intercede for my soul on High.”

Then came back a whispered echo over the sighing spray

“Blessed St. Bridget save me! Ora pro me.”

Serenely the lovely vision smiled peacefully on me,

Then slowly faded into the even’s mist.

Drying my dewy eyelids I sank on bended knee,

And prayed to the One who had suffered, nailed to a torture-tree,

Whose gaping wounds poor doubting Thomas kissed.

Part V.
THE LEADEN TABLET.

Then to my couch I bent my weary way,

And deep in sage reflection sank my soul.

Striving in halting phrases still to pray.

Striving to purge my heart, my mind, my whole.

Sinuous seductive music charmed the air,

Sweet fragrance cast such perfume all around

That I was dazed, and seeking everywhere,

No trace or sign of ought was to be found.

Then in the pentiled garth in virent ramage clothed

Open to view when lying on my bed,

—A spot that in the sunlight much I loathed—

Transpired the vision of a lovely head.

Golden of hair with slanting eyes of green,

Sharp pearléd teeth, of glassy, milky sheen,

Red rounded lips, like cherry cut in twain,

Chiseled and shapely ears straight backward lain,

A nose that Venus, of the Greeks adored,

Would madly envy; e’en she could scarce afford

To match her perfect body with the limbs

That tardy came to view below the head.

And still my haunted memory dizzy swims

When’er I view in thought her glowing form.