DREAM-FANCIES.

Whence are ye that come to us

In the stilly night?

Wherefore do you torture thus,

Phantoms of delight?

Say, if ye are only fancies,

Why your presence so entrances—

So deceives our sight?

Where, oh, where’s your stronghold, tell,

In what fairy land?

O’er what meads of Asphodel

Sport your elfin band?

Tell me truly, flitting fancies,

Where you hold those fairy dances,

On what sunny strand?

When you, with your subtle spell,

Hold our senses fast,

Absent comrades with us dwell,

Present seems the Past:

Say, if ye are idle fancies,

Why, when overpast the trance is,

Its impressions last?

Wherefore bring before us still

Those from whom we sever?

Mean you, that you tyrants will

Grant oblivion never?

Say, if ye are dreams and fancies,

Why in dreams young Cupid’s lances

Strike as deep as ever?

Tell me who your power confers,

Say from whom ye borrow

All your magic—harbingers

Ushering joy or sorrow;

Why, if ye’re but fickle fancies,

These dream-faces, these dream-glances

Haunt us so to-morrow?

Mortal mind may never know,

Mortal wisdom cite

Whence ye come or whither go,

Spirits of the night:

Yet your mystery enhances,

And your witchery entrances

More than pen may write.

E. W. H.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Roum or Rom, the gypsies’ own name for a gypsy all the world over.

[2] Lásho, otherwise látcho, ‘good.’

[3] Gaújoes, Gentiles or non-gypsies.

[4] Rómanes, the gypsy language.

[5] Báro lávengro, ‘great word-maker,’ that is, fluent speaker of the gypsy language.