The Dream

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My dream was such:
  It seemed the afternoon
  Of some deep tropic day, and yet a moon
  Stood round and full with largeness of white gleams
  High in a Heaven that knew not a sun's beams;
  A vast, still Heaven of unremembered dreams.
  Long, lawny lengths of perishable cloud
  Hung in a West o'er rolling forests bowed;
  Clouds raining colors, gold and violet
  That, opening, seemed from hidden worlds to let
  Down hints of mystic beauty and old charms
  Wrought of frail creatures fair with silvery forms.
  And all about me fruited orchards grew
  Of quince and peach and dusty plums of blue;
  Wan apricots and apples red with fire,
  Kissed into ripeness by some sun's desire,
  And big with juice; and on far, fading hills,
  Down which it seemed a hundred torrent rills
  Flashed leaping silver, vines and vines and vines
  Of purple vintage swollen with cool wines;
  Pale pleasant wines and fragrant as the June,
  Their delicate life robbed from the foam-fair moon.
  And from the clouds o'er this sweet world there dripp'd
  An odorous music strange and feverish lipped,
  That swung and swooned and panted in mad sighs,
  Invoking at each wave sad rapturous eyes
  Of limpid, willowy beings fair as night,
  Decked spangly with crisp flower-like stars of white;
  Dim honeyed booming of the boisterous bee
  In purple myriads of faint fleurs-de-lis;
  Of surf far-foaming on forgotten strands
  Of immemorial seas in fairy lands
  Of melting passion, who, with crimson lips
  Of many shells laid to each swell that dips,
  Sigh secret hope of unrequited love
  In murmurous language to wan winds above.

© Madison Julius Cawein