Page:Poet Lore, volume 8, 1896.djvu/14
Taliesin (seizing his harp). But that I know, nor longer
Shall these seducing sprites have power on me.
Listen, for now I rule them in my turn.
He touches the strings of his harp, and at the sound the other murmurs are still. He sings:—
Spirits of Sleep,
That swell and sink
In the sea of Being
Like waves on the deep,
Forming, crumbling,
Fumbling, and tumbling
Forever, unseeing,
From brink to brink.
Perishing voices,
That call and call
From the caves of dream
With hollow noises!
I hear the sweep
Of the tides of sleep,
The ocean stream
Where the ages fall.
But not for these
Will I let me die,
Though my heart remembers
The calling seas;
For the cycles fought
Till form was wrought
And Might had members
And I was I.
Yet still to you,
O Dreams, I turn;
Not with a prayer
But a bidding to do!
I surmount and subdue you;