1   Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,   A boundary between the things misnamed   Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,   And a wide realm of wild reality,   And dreams in their development have breath,   And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;   They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,   They take a weight from off waking toils,   They do divide our being; they become   A portion of ourselves as of our time,   And look like heralds of eternity;   They pass like spirits of the past—they speak   Like sibyls of the future; they have power—   The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;   They make us what we were not—what they will,   And shake us with the vision that’s gone by,   The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?   Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?   Creations of the mind?—The mind can make   Substances, and people planets of its own   With beings brighter than have been, and give   A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.   I would recall a vision which I dreamed   Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,   A slumbering thought, is capable of years,   And curdles a long life into one hour. 2   I saw two beings in the hues of youth   Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,   Green and of mild declivity, the last   As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,   Save that there was no sea to lave its base,   But a most living landscape, and the wave   Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men   Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke   Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill   Was crowned with a peculiar diadem   Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,   Not by the sport of nature, but of man:   These two, a maiden and a youth, were there   Gazing—the one on all that was beneath   Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;   And both were young, and one was beautiful:   And both were young—yet not alike in youth.   As the sweet moon on the horizon’s verge,   The maid was on the eve of womanhood;   The boy had fewer summers, but his heart   Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye   There was but one beloved face on earth,   And that was shining on him; he had looked   Upon it till it could not pass away;   He had no breath, no being, but in hers:   She was his voice; he did not speak to her,   But trembled on her words; she was his sight,   For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,   Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased   To live within himself: she was his life,   The ocean to the river of his thoughts,   Which terminated all; upon a tone,   A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,   And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart   Unknowing of its cause of agony.   But she in these fond feelings had no share:   Her sighs were not for him; to her he was   Even as a brother—but no more; ’twas much,   For brotherless she was, save in the name   Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;   Herself the solitary scion left   Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name   Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?   Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved   Another; even now she loved another,   And on the summit of that hill she stood   Looking afar if yet her lover’s steed   Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. 3   A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.   There was an ancient mansion, and before   Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:   Within an antique Oratory stood   The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,   And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon   He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced   Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned   His bowed head on his hands and shook, as ’twere   With a convulsion—then rose again,   And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear   What he had written, but he shed no tears.   And he did calm himself, and fix his brow   Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,   The Lady of his love re-entered there;   She was serene and smiling then, and yet   She knew she was by him beloved; she knew—   For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart   Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw   That he was wretched, but she saw not all.   He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp   He took her hand; a moment o’er his face   A tablet of unutterable thoughts   Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;   He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps   Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,   For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed   From out the massy gate of that old Hall,   And mounting on his steed he went his way;   And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more. 4   A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.   The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds   Of fiery climes he made himself a home,   And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt   With strange and dusky aspects; he was not   Himself like what he had been; on the sea   And on the shore he was a wanderer;   There was a mass of many images   Crowded like waves upon me, but he was   A part of all; and in the last he lay   Reposing from the noontide sultriness,   Couched among fallen columns, in the shade   Of ruined walls that had survived the names   Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side   Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds   Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,   Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,   While many of his tribe slumbered around:   And they were canopied by the blue sky,   So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,   That God alone was to be seen in heaven. 5   A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.   The Lady of his love was wed with One   Who did not love her better: in her home,   A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,   She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,   Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!   Upon her face there was a tint of grief,   The settled shadow of an inward strife,   And an unquiet drooping of the eye,   As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.   What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,   And he who had so loved her was not there   To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,   Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.   What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,   Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,   Nor could he be a part of that which preyed   Upon her mind—a spectre of the past. 6   A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.   The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand   Before an altar—with a gentle bride;   Her face was fair, but was not that which made   The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood   Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came   The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock   That in the antique Oratory shook   His bosom in its solitude; and then—   As in that hour—a moment o’er his face   The tablet of unutterable thoughts   Was traced—and then it faded as it came,   And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke   The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,   And all things reeled around him; he could see   Not that which was, nor that which should have been—   But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,   And the remembered chambers, and the place,   The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,   All things pertaining to that place and hour,   And her who was his destiny, came back   And thrust themselves between him and the light;   What business had they there at such a time? 7   A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.   The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed,   As by the sickness of the soul; her mind   Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,   They had not their own lustre, but the look   Which is not of the earth; she was become   The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts   Were combinations of disjointed things;   And forms impalpable and unperceived   Of others’ sight familiar were to hers.   And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise   Have a far deeper madness, and the glance   Of melancholy is a fearful gift;   What is it but the telescope of truth?   Which strips the distance of its fantasies,   And brings life near in utter nakedness,   Making the cold reality too real! 8   A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.   The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,   The beings which surrounded him were gone,   Or were at war with him; he was a mark   For blight and desolation, compassed round   With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed   In all which was served up to him, until,   Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,   He fed on poisons, and they had no power,   But were a kind of nutriment; he lived   Through that which had been death to many men,   And made him friends of mountains; with the stars   And the quick Spirit of the Universe   He held his dialogues: and they did teach   To him the magic of their mysteries;   To him the book of Night was opened wide,   And voices from the deep abyss revealed   A marvel and a secret.—Be it so. 9   My dream is past; it had no further change.   It was of a strange order, that the doom   Of these two creatures should be thus traced out   Almost like a reality—the one   To end in madness—both in misery.