Classic Poem

These words came from the sleeper whilst a dream
Moved o'er her face, like sunshine o'er a plain.
Her marble features bore a sudden gleam,
And settled into marbleness again:
Again, again lit up in gleams of bliss,
And seem'd in thought to ask " What place is this? "

What place is this! O, sleeper, thou art here,
Within the poor walls of thy simple home; —
Thou! thou! what thou? the mind? Yea, it is near —
Else, how the thoughts that o'er thy features come?
I see them arch thine eyebrows, curve thy lips:
Thy soul is there behind: sleep's an eclipse.

Thy mind, thy all, is here; then wherefore ask
What place is this, when thou thyself can'st tell?
Does sleep make false or true, mask or unmask
The things that, waking, thou wouldst know so well?
This finite side is dark; eclipsing sleep
Takes it, but gives thee all the infinite deep.

Thine the Unseen that lies behind our Seen,
And all thy storied past is in thy Now:
The waking memory pictures what has been, —
But falsely, shadowyly to that which thou
Art seeing now. The Been can never die!
It wakes in sleep — sleeps in the memory.

If waking sense receives it as ideal,
And holds a dream as that which only seems,
It is because we cannot get the real,
But only twilight-glimpses, of our dreams
In dreams and day we doubt not — on their rim
The things of dreams and day seem false and dim.

We may not know a dream but in a dream;
And when awake we know not what we knew.
The shreds that skirt our waking, we can deem
Nought but distorted shadows of the true.
It will not be brought out of sleep: we may
As well take into sleep the waking day.

Day-truths grow jumbled on the edge of sleep,
And dance in motley to the closing eye:
In vain we strive their sequences to keep;
But do we therefore hold day's truth a lie?
'Tween sleep and waking there's a belt of night
We darkly cross, and come again to light.

What place it is, or whom thou speakest to,
Sleeper, I may not guess; I can but trace
The lines of light that dimly flicker through
The dusky veil, and know there is a place
O, sleeper, thou art there! Within the Seen
There is a world the outward does but screen

The Unseen bears the Seen up, like a bell,
Of rainbow-hues, that floats upon the river;
And could it be withdrawn, ah, then, farewell
The things we dote on now! We are forever —
We and the world we cling to — all and we —
Resting on that we scarce believe to be

We live outside the temple, looking in
Through trances of deep thought — half entering when
Sleep takes us from the world's restraining din
But thought grows dim, and sleep brings back again.
O, not until Death open the great door,
Can we find entrance that leads back no more.