William Bell Scott’s “A Dream of Love” was published in The Monthly Repository in January 1838.  The poem was signed W. B. Scott and dated August 1837.  Scott published a revised version of the poem in his Poems (1854) and a further revision, entitled “Love,” in his Poems (1875).  The original published version is printed below.

A Dream of Love

I had a Dream:  more pleasant than the truth,

And pliant as ’twas pleasant, — must it be

Only a dream?  A Fancy that hath sprung

Blossoming like an arbour round the brow —

Wreathing into a joy, and causing care

To show his heel, up-climbing round the heart

As a silken-headed child with ignorant wiles,

Climbing a grey-beard’s knees, doth make him laugh

With its innoxious mirth, although enforced

By plucking his frosted hairs: — can it be all

A fancy?

                  This it was.  As through the street,

Where drays were jostling and the coachman’s lash

Rung o’er the necks of his thin-haunched beasts,

I had an errand of importunate haste

Passed, till in weariness I slackened pace,

And drew my hand across my brow to feel

How the sun scorched, and mitigate its heat

By lingering in the shadow a short while.

A tide of people passed me, and some looked

At me an instant vacantly, and passed,

Hurrying somewhere with a tedious thrift;

Unto the mart, unto the desk, the ship,

The tavern, or the mall.

There was obstruction in their looks, not death,

But an obstruction of the vivid soul:

They lived, yet lived not.  Had I spoke to them

What then I felt, they would have thought me mad,

And each in his own wisdom hugged himself.

 

Anon a little boy came sauntering by,

Whistling a merry air, that, arrow-like,

Went through my memory, and a fair Dear one

Drew me with a gentle hand into the haze

Of dream.  A strange transition — yet not strange,

If all the links that brought her image near

Were marked; — nor strange, since round her memories

Of hundreds of sweet moments are involved.

 

I left the obdurate noise.  Through paths of sward,

Where never cloud of dust had fallen, I reached

An opening in a wood of sapling boughs.

I entered, and within more still and cool

It was, and freshness on the air exhaled

From all the ground.  Half dusk it was, for round

And round the branches wove a screen from heaven

Of darkest green and varied leaf, ‘neath which

Flies thickly humming danced.  Sometimes a bird

Flew quickly through, and as its wing might brush

The leaves about your head, it seemed to fear

That it had been encaged.  Flowers too were there,

Sprinkled about amidst the grass that grows,

Hair-like and thin, beneath the shade; bluebells

Tinkling to the small breeze a bee might cause,

And violets and poppies red and rough

In stem.  I passed still deeper through the wood

By this cool path:  a wood more kindly cool,

Or harmless of dank posions or vile beasts

That creep, there cannot be, and yet so wild

And uncouth.  Bushes of dark fruit beside

The pathway from the ground piled up a mass

Of leaves and berries, from which flocked the birds

As I passed on, or lingered with dyed hands

Plucking them listless, and with profuse waste

Pressing their juice out.  Other trees were there,

Blossoming for a later month.  And now,

As if from the champaign land afar, came sounds

Of hearty laughter, mellowed by the air,

Until it scarcely was audible; and song

Like a reaper’s song, a very pleasant sound,

Betokening a clear breast, and heard beneath

A clear skey chequered by thick boughs — a sound

Right happy.  So I also sang.  The sun

Now found an opening through the stems, to fall

Upon my path; and as I walked, across

The flowers upon my right my shadow passed.

A butterfly with purple-velvet wings,

Invested with two lines of gold and dusk,

And spotted with red spots, upon these flowers

Was feeding, and anon as my shadow fell

Upon it, it flew up and went before,

Lighting again until I passed:  and so

Continued it.  The space more close and close

Became, and all between the trees were warped

Vine-twigs, and plants more fair than vines.  Beneath

A slow stream likewise glent, and silently

Fed sprouting water-lilies, and long reeds

Heavy with seed, which might have made fair pipes,

Cut nicely by the joints, from whence a leaf

Descended.  But I thought not of the task,

Watching my guide’s dark wings, until the path

Seemed stayed by dense convolvulus and boughs

(Largely o’ergrown without the pruner’s hands)

Of the red-hearted rose.  But the dark fly lowered

Its flight till nigh the ground, and passed into

The mass of greenery by an interspace

Which I had not seen:  with my hands I raised,

And parted with my head, full lazily,

The luscious screen at this same space.  Anon

I found myself beneath a peristyle

Of short columnar palms, before me steps

Of thickest grass descended to a space

Smooth tapestried, with living garlands bound,

And set about with cushioned seats of wood

Cut roughly from the forest, over which

Uptangling richly to the highest trees,

And waving even then into the air,

Flowers rare and unknown, and around a fount

(Of which a marble girl, with green feet through

The water and white head, seemed Nymph) bright heaps

Of rosy blooms were strewn.  But all these sweets

Were nothing to the influence which came o’er

My being from some unseen power, whose grace

The whole seemed imitative of;  whose smile

The light seemed intimating to the flowers;

Whose goodness all around seemed fashioned by,

Half slumbering as I stretched out upon the sward,

Mazed by this unknown beauty, and the swarms

Of flies like that which here had guided me

All round, the influence became more dear,

More fixed, and I beheld a Lady.  Round

Her hand, which held some sweet, the insects thronged,

And lighted on her hair.  I did not start

With rapture nor surprise, nor did I deem

Myself unworthy of this gardened love,

This goddess-girl, nor said she aught to me,

But by her eyes, which never looked on me,

I said she was the spirit of my life,

And tho’ I had not seen her until now

I had still known her.

She bent down beside

The sward I pressed;  she leant on the rude seat

Over me.  And I knew not from that hour

Whether it was myself I gazed upon;

Or whether I beheld with intense love

And sympathy some higher beings, both

Worthy of each.  And she began to sing;

A language which was song was hers, — she sang;

A fragile lute upon her knees she placed,

And, balanced from her beck by a silken cord,

Her fingers made it speak, yet touched it not,

But her hands hovered o’er it like two birds

With wings still fluttering to descends, — she played.

Soft as the first tints of a rainbow bound

About an evening shower, her music first

Came on my sense scarce audible, so faint;

Then, waxing bolder, it ascended heaven

With all its colours brightening.  My heart

It stilled to sleep, as a sister stills a child

That murmurs not, but smiling upwards on

The watching eye, to rest unconsciously

Sinks pleased.  But changing suddenly, the notes

Began to whirl together as a flight

Of swallows, and then louder still became.

Happy beyond all words, fair spirits seemed

Clamorous and clapping of their hands for joy!

Too happy beyond words, I would have wept,

Had I been in the actual world, where tears

Are bred by intense sympathy, but here,

Where sympathy was life, I did not weep.

— Oh Lady, thou art beautiful!  and now

The dark hair of thy song doth shade its eyes,

The eye-lid of thy music droops;  it plains

Slowly and saturated with sweet pain,

Carries my soul into a sphered realm

Of everlasting melancholy. — Maid!

Who mournest for thy lover, hear the lay

And be not comforted, but mourn no more

As you have mourned.  Youth!  whose thirsting love

Has conjured an ideal from the land

Of Hades, listen with a joyous hope

And mourn not with the bitterness that thou

Hast mourned.

Awake, awake, inspired lyre!

A louder chord is struck!  let grief at once

Be wept out like a thunder-rain, and pride

Go up triumphant with a purple flush

And warn of trump — the golden crown doth press

The spirit’s forehead who hath conquered all! —

The earth is filled, oh!  filled with gracious things!

— Oh Lady, thou art wondrous fair and good!

Slowly again to life descends thy strain —

An odour as of rose-leaves seems to fall

Upon me, and a purplish light:  again

It scales the arc of higher heaven, alas!

Art thou not over me as is a God,

Oh Lady, with thy lute? — and I will faint

Utterly into Death, oh intermit

The binding of thy linked power, cease,

And let me drink a silence short and deep,

Then die into the Life that thou dost live.