WALTER (awakening).
Fair lady, in my dream
Methought I was a weak and lonely bird,
In search of summer, wander'd on the sea,
Toiling through mists, drenched by the arrowy rain,
Struck by the heartless winds: at last, methought
I came upon an isle in whose sweet air
I dried my feathers, smoothed my ruffled breast,
And skimmed delight from off the waving woods.
Thy coming, lady, reads this dream of mine:
I am the swallow, thou the summer land.
LADY.
Sweet, sweet is flattery to mortal ears,
And, if I drink thy praise too greedily,
My fault I'll match with grosser instances.
Do not the royal souls that van the world
Hunger for praises? Does not the hero burn
To blow his triumphs in the trumpet's mouth?
And do not poets' brows throb feverous
Till they are cooled with laurels? Therefore, sir,
If such dote more on praise than all the wealth
Of precious-wombèd earth and pearlèd mains,
Blame not the cheeks of simple maidenhood.
Fair sir, I am the empress of this wood!
The courtier oaks bow in proud homages,
And shake down o'er my path their golden leaves.
Queen am I of this green and summer realm.
This wood I've entered oft when all in sheen
The princely Morning walks o'er diamond dews,
And still have lingered, till the vain young Night
Trembles o'er her own beauty in the sea.
WALTER.
And as thou passest some mid-forest glade,
The simple woodman stands amazed, as if
An angel flashed by on his gorgeous wings.
LADY.
I am thine empress. Who and what art thou?
Art thou Sir Bookworm? Haunter of old tomes,
Sitting the silent term of stars to watch
Your own thought passing into beauty, like
An earnest mother watching the first smile
Dawning upon her sleeping infant's face,
Until she cannot see it for her tears?
And when the lark, the laureate of the sun,
Doth climb the east, eager to celebrate
His monarch's crowning, goeth pale to bed,—
Art thou such denizen of book-world, pray?
WALTER.
Books written when the soul is at spring-tide,
When it is laden like a groaning sky
Before a thunder-storm, are power and gladness,
And majesty and beauty. They seize the reader
As tempests seize a ship, and bear him on
With a wild joy. Some books are drenchèd sands,
On which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy. What power in books!
They mingle gloom and splendour, as I've oft,
In thund'rous sunsets, seen the thunder-piles
Seamed with dull fire and fiercest glory-rents.
They awe me to my knees, as if I stood
In presence of a king. They give me tears;
Such glorious tears as Eve's fair daughters shed,
When first they clasped a Son of God, all bright
With burning plumes and splendours of the sky,
In zoning heaven of their milky arms.
How few read books aright! Most souls are shut
By sense from grandeur, as a man who snores,
Night-capped and wrapt in blankets to the nose,
Is shut in from the night, which, like a sea,
Breaketh for ever on a strand of stars.
Lady, in book-world have I ever dwelt,
This book has domed my being like a sky.