I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay In a garden with flowers teeming. On an island I lay in a mystical bay, In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.
The ghost of a scent — had it followed me there From the place where I truly was resting? It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air, The presence of roses attesting.
Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed That the place was all barren of roses — That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed, Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses.
Full many a seaman had testified How all who sailed near were enchanted, And landed to search ( and in searching died ) For the roses the Sirens had planted.
For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed In the stead of their singing forever; But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed, Though man had discovered them never.
I thought in my dream‘ twas an idle tale, A delusion that mariners cherished — That the fragrance loading the conscious gale Was the ghost of a rose long perished.
I said, “I will fly from this island of woes.” And acting on that decision, By that odor of rose I was led by the nose, For‘ twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian.
I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source Of the redolent river — directed By some supernatural, sinister force To a forest, dark, haunted, infected.
And still as I threaded (‘ twas all in the dream That I dreamed I was dreaming ) each turning There were many a scream and a sudden gleam Of eyes all uncannily burning!
The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew That mirrored the red moon's crescent, And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue, Dim, wavering, phosphorescent.
But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free, Led me on, though my blood was clotting, Till — ah, joy!— I could see, on the limbs of a tree, Mine enemies hanging and rotting!
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