The Inscrutable

Dread under-life whose dreams Along the midnight rush, Poured out like cavern-streams That from the darkness gush, A murderous thought has issued forth to flood A maiden’s sleep in blood.

He that hath swum the heaven Of woman’s loving eyes— To him a dream is given, As helplessly he lies, A dream that never nigh his thought had passed, Till in that slumber cast.

He loves her and she loves, But stern her father’s heart That every passion moves Their holy hope to thwart. Can they, meek sleepers, on dream-demons call To burst the iron thrall?

That night in dreams that sway The soul to shedding blood, One hears his own voice say In sleep’s half-weary mood, ‘Take down your father’s sword and quickly slide The blade into his side.

‘Disguise the seeming guilt, And bend his fingers round, And put them on the hilt, And leave him to his wound.’ In that strange dream until the break of day, Asleep the lover lay.

He wakes, aghast; he strives To get the vision hence That into morning lives, And fastens on his sense. ’Tis but a dream, but should her hand fulfil His will within her will!

She comes up wild and pale, She wrings her hands in pain, She utters with a wail— ‘Who hath my father slain! My anguished heart sobbed all night in its sleep; I felt it sob and weep.

‘I saw you while I slept, And to my dream you spoke; All night your words I kept, I heard them when I woke: “Take down your father’s sword and quickly slide The blade into his side.”

‘“Disguise the seeming guilt, And bend his fingers round, And put them on the hilt, And leave him to his wound.” O the false voice, that it so true should seem In that unthought-of dream!

‘I hurried to the bed, I saw that he was slain, I saw the blood was shed, I saw the deep,—deep stain. His sword was in his side,—thrust,—to the hilt,— His fingers took the guilt.’