Poems (Forrest)/The dream barge

THE DREAM BARGE

I

Worn here and there by little feet,
The mat upon the floor is string;
And when you shake it, full of dust,
By day an ordinary thing.
But you should see it when at night
The house is still and stars are bright.

At first it will begin to glow,
As if a pixy lantern led
From some trap-door beneath the boards,
Luring the children out of bed,
As, underneath a northern sun,
The tattered Piper might have done!
And then it takes on many a hue,
A golden thread in darkness spun,
A scarlet from some brown bazaar,
The crimsons of a desert sun,
Seen from a swaying camel's back,
When the hot sand-storm blurs the track.

It smells of amber, and of jars
Of Orient essences and oils,
As if some wide-winged jinn had swept
A sultan's still-room for his spoils;
While thro' the spices come the fine
Cool whiffs of dainty jessamine.
At either end, a tiny lamp
To steady it and give us light,
The lamps are of the prophet's green
Of floating oil in malachite;
And where they touch the carpet's fold,
Their twisted handles are of gold.

Thus a dream barge our mat becomes!
It glides across the nursery floor,
It lifts itself beside the bed,
And, tho' our mother locked the door,
The window offers it no bars,
Wide open to the watching stars.
How small the town looks from above!
There is the schoolhouse, there our street,
We see the station signal glow,
The big policeman on his beat;
And now there comes a white cloud's breast,
A spire pricks thro'. We lose the rest.

Green fields beyond the city's rim,
The dark slopes of the forest land;
And there we find the foam-ringed beach,
The pale arms of the clasping sand;
The dwarf-backed waves that ride the blue,
And thus the fairy tales come true.
Upon a narrow spit of shore
The centuries' memorials pile;
Here are the dun sails of a boat
Blown northward down the yellow Nile.
We see a black-robed woman kneel
Beside a wailing waterwheel.

Blue loin-cloths of the fellahin
About their lithe, dark bodies set;
The crooked alleys of the town,
The tracery of a minaret.
Dead cities, where the wild things tread,
And all we ever dreamed or read.
We see the corn jars in the wall,
The women going to the well,
Prayer-makers crying from a tower,
We hear the distant camel bell,
And watch, for many a dreaming mile,
Grain barges drifting on the Nile.

We find the Valley of the Kings,
And all the kings are very still;
They care no more to wander from
Their rock-hewn caverns in the hill;
Tho' far away, with ghostly hands,
Fair mirage beckons from the sands.
We hear the tinkling waters fall
Where some green Arab garden glows;
We wing above the shady aisles
That smell for ever of the rose,
While, just outside the crumbling wall,
Black scorpions in the sunshine sprawl

We feed our oil lamps from the jars
The Syrian merchant keeps in store;
He spreads for us a rainbow robe
Some Caliph's lover long since wore.
We shake our heads. Tho' we may roam,
Dream barges carry nothing home!
A little Nubian boy, so black
From small flat feet to bullet head,
Carries a bowl of scarlet, filled
With snowy milk and floating bread;
And, pecking with pink beaks at it,
Blue pigeons on his shoulder sit.

Here is a lady, deeply veiled,
Two bright eyes o'er a strip of lace,
She watches as if wondering
At two strange children in this place;
The jewels on her hand are great,
Her wrist seems weary of their weight.
A dusky eunuch follows her,
With feathers in his woolly hair;
If he should stab her with his knife,
We scarcely think that she would care
We sigh as to our barge we swing,
She seems to us the loneliest thing!

II

Here the grey donkeys climb the pass,
Their osier baskets bulging big
With sugary dates in Smyrna packed,
And bursting lilacs of the fig.
We turn from these, amazed to see
How deep the blue of Galilee!
We have no map; our barge floats on,
Our Captain only is our wish!
A gaudy-hued flamingo screams
Above the silver heaps of fish.
And there a grave, black-bearded man
Is watchful of the pelican.

III

Now we are in an audience hall,
A throne with peacock feathers drest;
A little bundle of a king,
His silly head sunk to his breast;
His beard is dyed a royal blonde,
And emerald and diamond
Set his great turban all ablaze.
He sucks a water pipe and sighs,
The slender girl against his knee
Looks down with murder in her eyes;
'While one who stands behind the throne
Spits envies of a queen o'erthrown.

A messenger, who entered in
With panting breath, salaamed and laid
On cushions at the monarch's feet,
A heavy bag of rich brocade.
A greeting he had carried far,
By jungle ways, 'neath sum and star.
Past brakes where hungry tigers lay,
Past creepered trails where pythons hang,
Thro' mist-choked passes of the hills,
Down valleys where the locust sang;
Salute from his high lord to bring,
And beg a favour of the King,

Who yawns and blinks and nods his head.
The Favourite crouching at his feet,
She eyes the messenger, and he
Gives back her glances, more discreet,
Conveying, between naked toes,
A folded paper. How she glows,
As, bending on some swift pretence,
She slips it in her purple sash!
Again we hear the sound of bells;
This time their hurry makes them clash
Like knife on knife. There is a stain
Of red . . . We mount our barge again.

No palace windows are too high
To keep our ship of fancy out;
The frightened doves wheel from the court,
In the bazaar we hear a shout,
And, galloping by gardens green,
We see a swaying palankeen.
We leave the towered town again,
We like it not in angry mood,
Where smoked the incense of the shrine,
The cinnamons seem damped with blood.
Above the misty millet plain
We laugh into the clouds again . . .

To find the tossing sea once more,
Below our flight see coral isles,
Lighthouses feeling with their rays
Where stealthy, treacherous tide beguiles;
And hear the gannets o'er the race
Scream, pecking at a dead man's face.
We see black flags of pirate dhows,
The rusting gold in Spanish ships,
A princess in a sea-girt tower,
Holding a dead flower to her lips.
While, riven by the sharp rock's fangs,
Half-way, a silken ladder hangs.

And then above our own dear land
In the grey east there glows a light,
Oh, hurry, hurry, magic barge,
Or we shall not be home to-night!
And, at the school across the way,
Geography's the task to-day.
Our dream barge takes no heed of that—
Where would its claim to magic be
If it were tied to time and tide,
The chattel of geography!
Dream barges always guess their route . . .
The dawn star fades, as down we shoot.

How short the night! How long the day!
The key is turned; the nursery door
Jerks open, and a mat of string
Sinks worn and ugly to the floor . . .
As in cold beds we snuggle down,
A cock crows somewhere in the town.