The Vision
By Edgar Lee Masters
Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
Scanning the mysteries of life and death
I dreamed, though how impassable the space
Of time between the present and the past!
This was the vision that possessed my mind;
I thought the weird and gusty days of March
Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
Of hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughs
Of walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;
And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;
The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;
The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;
Night's weeping stars and all the pageantries
Of awakened life had blossomed into May,
Whilst she with trailing violets in her hair
Blew music from the stops of watery stems,
And swept the grasses with her viewless robes,
Which dreaming men thought voices, dreaming still.
Now as I lay in vision by the stream
That flows amidst our well beloved vale,
I looked throughout the vista stretched between
Two ranging hills; one meadowed rich in grass;
The other wooded, thick and quite obscure
With overgrowth, rank in the luxury
Of all wild places, but ever growing sparse
Of trees or saplings on the sudden slope
That met the grassy level of the vale; -
But still within the shadow of those woods,
Which sprinkled all beneath with fragrant dew,
There grew all flowers, which tempted little paths
Between them, up and on into the wood.
Here, as the sun had left his midday peak
The incommunicable blue of heaven blent
With his fierce splendor, filling all the air
With softened glory, while the pasturage
Trembled with color of the poppy blooms
Shook by the steps of the swift-sandaled wind.
Nor any sound beside disturbed the dream
Of Silence slumbering on the drowsy flowers.
Then as I looked upon the widest space
Of open meadow where the sunlight fell
In veils of tempered radiance, I saw
The form of one who had escaped the care
And equal dullness of our common day.
For like a bright mist rising from the earth
He made appearance, growing more distinct
Until I saw the stole, likewise the lyre
Grasped by the fingers of the modeled hand.
Yea, I did see the glory of his hair
Against the deep green bay-leaves filleting
The ungathered locks. And so throughout the vale
His figure stood distinct and his own shade
Was the sole shadow. Deeming this approach
Augur of good, as if in hidden ways
Of loveliness the gods do still appear
The counselors of men, and even where
Wonder and meditation wooed us oft,
I cried, "Apollo" - and his form dissolved,
As if the nymphs of echo, who took up
The voice and bore it to the hollow wood,
By that same flight had startled the great god
To vanishment. And thereupon I woke
And disarrayed the figment of my thought.
For of the very air, magic with hues,
Blent with the distant objects, I had formed
The splendid apparition, and so knew
It was, alas! a dream within a dream!