LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC. 139
Not as when sunlight strikes the counterpane,
Half wakening, sleep rolls back her iron wave,
And dawn brings blithesomeness ;
Not as when opiates lull the tortured brain
And sprinkle lotus on the drowsy grave
Of earth’s old bitterness;
But as when consciousness half rouses up
And hurls back all the gibbering harpy crowd ;
And sleep’s draught deepeneth,
And all the furies of hell’s belly sup
In the brain’s palaces, and chant aloud
Songs that foretaste of Death.
Maddened, the brain breaks from beneath the goad,
Flings off again the foe, and from its hell
Brings for a moment peace,
Till weariness and her infernal load
Of phantom memory-shapes return to quell
The shaken fortresses.
Till nature reassert her empery,
And the full tide of wakefulness at last
Foam on the shore of sleep
To beat the white cliffs of reality
In vain, because their windy strength is past
And only memories weep.
Why is the Finite real? And that world
So larger, and more beautiful, and fleet,
So free, so exquisite,