Renascence: A Book of Verse

by Walter Crane

THE·HOVSE·OF·DREAMS

I SATE in my soul’s house one day

The world-wide book before me lay

And in mine eyes, as through a glass

The colours of all things did pass,

And thought and life, in mingled stream,

Strange semblance showed as in a dream.

My soul’s still house lies hid in trees,

And sitting in its porch one sees,

Before the feet, a garden green,

Amidst a wild and dark demesne,

When sight may range by lea and lawn,

From sunset to the gate of dawn,

Till through the utmost wood may be

Descried a dim and dreadful sea.

Five gates it hath, five porches fair,

That know bright guests of light and air,

And through the windows, clear and high,

The winged thoughts come from earth and sky

That show me things by shore and sea,

And visions high of things to be.

Anigh the house a water clear,

Born of some secret crystal mere

Among the mountains of the land,

And flowing to the dim sea-strand;

But still and silent in its pace,

That in its smooth translucent face

Bright image flashed of many a thing,

And folk that passed in wandering,

With colours fresh of tree and flower.

Here kept my soul a secret bower;

And in the garden all the year

One plied his craft of gardener,

Nor slept between the moon and sun,

Nor ever was his labour done;

For this was Time who told my hours

And gave, and took away, my flowers.

And one beside him fed a fire

With listless hands, whose whole desire

Was not therein, but far away

She watched an ever dying day:

She smiled sometimes, and oft she wept,

But through her tears her watch she kept:

Time brought her flowers; she cast the same

To feed the hungering tongues of flame—

Yea, all men know the dreamful dame,

Pale Memory, ye rede her name.

In my soul’s house, alway to be,

Dwelt spirits five for company,

And fair they were in form and face,

And well my soul’s white house did grace:

For one the chambers garnished fit

With boughs and flowers, and them she lit

By night and day, for she was Sight

And rulèd all my soul’s delight.

Her sister to my table bare

Sweet pleasure of earth’s fruits and rare,

As every season brought its meed

Or ever as my soul had need.

Another made sweet incense rise

From out a censer in such wise

That mingled sweet of every kind,

And let the slender smoke enwind

The pillars of the roof, and send

The pleasant mist from end to end.

The while another yet of these

With music soft my soul would please;

To every thought in every mood

She made her tuneful interlude:

She touched the strings, she ruled the lute,

And many a soft harmonious flute

That mocked the birds in leafy quire;

But oft this spirit would aspire

To lift the solemn organ’s voice,

And this would be her dearest choice,

Till, with its deeper soul embued,

My soul forgot its solitude.

Yet one there was, both dumb and blind,

Who yet was wise in every kind,

And many a thing her hand could teach,

In silent service serving each.

These watched the house and kept it fair

As each its several part had care.

Thus sate my soul and talked with these

In its white porch among the trees;

And each brought word what she had seen

Of all that ranged that region green:

For many folk passed to and fro,

As flew the hours or footed slow.

One came in garment green and pale

Across the hill, adown the dale,

And blossoms in her hand she bore;

A swallow skimmed her path before;

It was a herald bright of spring,

And this the song that she did sing:

There fell a day of sun and shower,

Spring stirred within her leafless bower,

She sent me from her wintry home—

“Go forth and tell the world I come.”

Beneath the windows of the dawn

I took my way, by lake and lawn,

I saw of flowers the firstling born,

I gathered of the flowering thorn:

And from the dale and from the down

I passed into the sleeping town,

Along the stoney streets to spill

My flowers, by door and window sill:

But they were like the eyes of men,

Sleep-locked, though some were open then:

I saw within a darkened room

An old man, lying in the gloom.

He saw my flowers, and then he sighed,

And turned upon his bed and died.

I took my way with soundless feet,

But none I met my steps to greet.

Save when a wakeful babe me spied,

And stretched his dimpled arms and cried.

They hushed his voice, nor knew his will—

I left the city sleeping still.

She ceased her song, and there was hush,

As after when the tuneful thrush

Hath warbled clear the wood is still

Ere yet again the quire sings shrill

For very joy.

And then I heard,

Among the grass, Time grind and gird

Upon his blade: He stooped to slay,

And soon before his feet there lay

The fallen emblems of the hours—

A harvest sheaf of spring’s first flowers—

Which she beside him gathering flung

Into the fire the while they sung,

And thus I heard their voices chime: