Let the red torches toss and flare,

And all the long-stemmed trumpets blare,

Let brass beat loud on brass.

Let the Kings ride in victory,

Low comes the thought amidst the cry,

"These visions shall but pass."

For, like reflections in a mirror,

Or empty bubbles on a river,

The striving world passed by.

What seemed to others worth the winning

Thro' strong desire or hate of sinning

Brought him no energy.

The thunder muttering on the hills,

The song of birds, the babbling rills,

The painted flowers and stars,

This pageantry of earth did seem

The parcel of a timeless dream.

He lived beyond the bars.

It was to him a vague mirage

Or memory of a storied page

With only that appeal;

But oftentimes a sound or sight

Would bring to him his own delight

More subtle than the real.

And with his sense of entity

Half lost, he raised a vacant eye

Into the empyrean.

And as he lay upon his back

The pealing centuries rolled back....

He saw the blue Ægean.

And thus he dreamt: "My palace home

With minaret and marble dome

Upon the sapphire strait.

My garden full of nightingales,

One singing as the other fails

While evening groweth late.

"And from my watch-tower I behold

Beneath a sky of molten gold

My argosies return.

A homeward wind is in their sails,

Freighted are they with costly bales,

Vast fires behind them burn.

"I have a room with shining floors

And lofty roof and polished doors,

Wherein I love to dine

With two good friends at left and right,

Whose converse is my soul's delight

And glads my heart like wine.

"Or in my marble portico

We sit and watch the summer glow

And talk of love and death;

And when the amber twilight fails

We listen to the nightingales,

And evening holds her breath.

"Oh! Charicles and Charmides,

Much have I dreamt of hours like these,

My friends I never knew—

Whose voices and whose grave, sweet words

Were lovelier than the songs of birds,

And fresher than the dew.

"For Charicles has love and youth,

And all his words are sweet with truth,

Like a garden with the rain;

And Charmides is mild and wise,

But with his tear-washed, violet eyes

Yet can he smile again.

"Perhaps I knew you, ancient lords

Of nobler wit and finer chords—

But this I cannot tell;

For ever lovely things I sought

In some strange borderland of thought,

Content therein to dwell.

"For who could blame or who could praise

If one should choose to pass his days

In a phantasy of dreams,

And, finding thus his own ideal

In things dissevered from the real,

Be happier than he seems?

"Ah! who could praise or who could blame,

Tho' glimmers all my way the same,

Like a dyke-road thro' a fen.

Far on, far on—a ruddy spark—

The toll-light glows adown the dark,

And I, like other men,

"Must pay my toll and pass beyond,—

I made no vow, I signed no bond,

Nor lose my self-esteem,

But pass, unknown, unloved, unlost,

The man who knew and weighed the cost,

The man who dared to dream.

"For what is Fame and what's a Name,

Your cries of sorrow, wrath, and shame,

Your Hamlets and King Lears,

The night must cover them again

Did they last a thousand lives of men,

A thousand thousand years.

"The world may say that I have missed;

Ah! no—I am an egoist

Of subtle, fixed design.

My dreams a garden are to me

To which no other holds the key,

I wish to keep them mine.

"All mine—those tender, half-thought things,

Which flutter gossamer rainbow wings

And hover near, near, near.

Why should I catch and pin them down

And lose their beauty for a crown

Would chafe my brows to wear.

"And thus, a baser alchemist

In some perverted plan persist

To turn my gold to dross.

If I turned my gold their soul were sold

Tho' I wore a crown and cloth of gold,

Their soul were then the loss.

"If I sat high, a crownèd king,

With lofty brows in a royal ring,

A lustrous diadem,

If I wore the titles 'High, Strong, and Wise,'

And garments stained with purple dyes,

All jewelled at the hem

"With emeralds, rubies and jacinth stones,

Such as great kings wear on their golden thrones,

And a royal mantle of vair,

And held a sceptre in my hand,

Which showed me ruler of all the land,

In my palace, where none might dare

"To cross my word, but all must bow

As the courtly throng are bending now,

And give the King his meed,

And slaves waved forests of peacock fans

And a cry went up like a single man's,

'This is the King indeed.'

"For I could be King and Overlord

In the wondrous realm of the written word,

Am King there ... in my dreams.

So, loving dreams, this life I choose—

The tramp's with tattered coat and shoes,

Yet happier than it seems.

"Thus, oh! my dreams, you grow not old,

No process dims you, leaves you cold,

Immortal, bright, you come,

And if you come not, I am wise,

I have my trusted old allies,

Tobacco, beer, and rum."

His chin sank down upon his breast,

And suddenly the brown bird ceased

To pour her strain abroad.

A sound less sweet to mortal ear

Uprose (had one been there to hear)....

It was the tramp who snored.