MY DREAM
by: Christina Rossetti
(1830-1894)
- EAR now a curious dream I dreamed
last night
- Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.
-
- I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled
- Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:
- It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;
- Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled
- Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,
- Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.
- The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend
- My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;
- And therefore it were wisely left untold;
- Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.
-
- Each crocodile was girt with massive gold
- And polished stones that with their wearers grew:
- But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,
- Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,
- Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.
- All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,
- But special burnishment adorned his mail
- And special terror weighed upon his frown;
- His punier brethren quaked before his tail,
- Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.
-
- So he grew lord and master of his kin:
- But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?
- An execrable appetite arose,
- He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.
- He knew no law, he feared no binding law,
- But ground them with inexorable jaw:
- The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,
- Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,
- While still like hungry death he fed his maw;
- Till every minor crocodile being dead
- And buried too, himself gorged to the full,
- He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.
- Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:
- In sleep he dwindled to the common size,
- And all the empire faded from his coat.
- Then from far off a wingèd vessel came,
- Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:
- I know not what it bore of freight or host,
- But white it was as an avenging ghost.
- It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;
- Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote
- It seemed to tame the waters without force
- Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:
- Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,
- The prudent crocodile rose on his feet
- And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.
-
- What can it mean? you ask. I answer not
- For meaning, but myself must echo, What?
- And tell it as I saw it on the spot.
"My Dream" is reprinted
from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
Christina Rosetti. London: Macmillan 1879. |
MORE POEMS BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI |
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