And that so little it would hold but one,
Though till this hour they never lay alone.
So were they forced to part; one staid behind,
His fellow sought what lodging he could find:
At last he found a stall where oxen stood,
And that he rather chose than lie abroad.
'Twas in a farther yard without a door;
But, for his ease, well littered was the floor.
His fellow, who the narrow bed had kept,
Was weary, and without a rocker slept:
Supine he snored; but in the dead of night,
He dreamt his friend appeared before his sight,
Who, with a ghastly look and doleful cry,
Said, help me, brother, or this night I die:
Arise, and help, before all help be vain,
Or in an ox's stall I shall be slain.
Rouzed from his rest, he wakened in a start,
Shivering with horror, and with aching heart
At length to cure himself by reason tries;
"Twas but a dream, and what are dreams but lies?
So thinking changed his side, and closed his eyes.
His dream returns; his friend appears again:
The murderers come, now help, or I am slain:-
'Twas but a vision still, and visions are but vain.
He dreamt the third; but now his friend appeared Pale, naked, pierced with wounds, with blood besmeared:
Thrice warned, awake, said he; relief is late,
The deed is done; but thou revenge my fate:
Tardy of aid, unseal thy heavy eyes,
Awake, and with the dawning day arise:
Take to the western gate thy ready way,
For by that passage they my corpse convey:
My corpse is in a tumbrel laid, among
The filth, and ordure, and inclosed with dung.
That cart arrest, and raise a common cry;
For sacred hunger of my gold I die:-
Then shewed his grisly wounds; and last he drew
A piteous sigh, and took a long adieu.
The frighted friend arose by break of day,
And found the stall where late his fellow lay.
Then of his impious host inquiring more,
Was answered that his guest was gone before:
Muttering he went, said he, by morning light,
And much complained of his ill rest by night.
This raised suspicion in the pilgrim's mind;
Because all hosts are of an evil kind,
And oft to share the spoil with robbers joined.
His dream confirmed his thought; with troubled
look
Straight to the western gate his way he took;
There, as his dream foretold, a cart he found,
That carried compost forth to dung the ground.
This when the pilgrim saw, he stretched his throat,
And cried out murder with a yelling note.
My murdered fellow in this cart lies dead;
Vengeance and justice on the villain's head!
You, magistrates, who sacred laws dispense,
On you
I call to punish this offence.-
The word thus given, within a little space,
The mob came roaring out, and thronged the place.
All in a trice they cast the cart to ground,
And in the dung the murdered body found;
Though breathless, warm, and reeking from the
wound.
Good heaven, whose darling attribute we find
Is boundless grace, and mercy to mankind,
Abhors the cruel; and the deeds of night
By wondrous ways reveals in open light:
Murder may pass unpunished for a time,
But tardy justice will o'ertake the crime.
And oft a speedier pain the guilty feels,
The hue and cry of heaven pursues him at the heels,
Fresh from the fact, as in the present case:
The criminals are seized upon the place;
Carter and host confronted face to face.
Stiff in denial, as the law appoints,
On engines they distend their tortured joints;
So was confession forced, the offence was known,
And public justice on the offenders done.
Here may you see that visions are to dread;
And in the page that follows this, I read
Of two young merchants, whom the hope of gain
Induced in partnership to cross the main;
Waiting till willing winds their sails supplied,
Within a trading-town they long abide,
Full fairly situate on a haven's side.
One evening it befel, that, looking out,
The wind they long had wished was come about;
Well pleased they went to rest; and if the gale
Till morn continued, both resolved to sail.
But as together in a bed they lay,
The younger had a dream at break of day.
A man, he thought, stood frowning at his side,
Who warned him for his safety to provide,
Nor put to sea, but safe on shore abide.
I come, thy genius, to command thy stay;
Trust not the winds, for fatal is the day,
And death unhoped * attends the watry way.
*Hoped and unhoped, anciently meant only expected and unexpected. Puttenham, in his "Art of English Poesie," 1589, mentions the Tanner of Tamworth, who, in his broad dialect, said to King Edward, upon discovering his rank, and remembering the familiarities he had used with him while in disguise; "I hope I shall be hanged to-morrow," for "I fear me I shall be hanged." The use of the verb hope, was therefore limited to its present sense, even in Queen Elizabeth's time. But Dryden, in translating an old poet, used some latitude in employing ancient language.
The vision said, and vanished from his sight. The dreamer wakened in a mortal fright;
Then pulled his drowsy neighbour, and declared,
What in his slumber he had seen and heard.
His friend smiled scornful, and, with proud contempt,
Rejects as idle what his fellow dreamt.
Stay, who will stay; for me no fears restrain,
Who follow Mercury, the god of gain;
Let each man do as to his fancy seems,
I wait not, I, till you have better dreams.
Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes;
When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of coblers, and a court of kings:
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad;
Both are the reasonable soul run mad;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.
Sometimes, forgotten things long cast behind
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse's legends are for truths received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day,
As hounds in sleep will open for their prey.
In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece,
Chimeras all; and more absurd, or less.
You, who believe in tales, abide alone;
Whate'er I this
get voyage is my own.-
be room to suspect, that the line should run,
A court of coblers, and a mob of kings;
as better expressing the confusion of ideas incident to dream. ing.
Thus while he spoke, he heard the shouting crew
That called aboard, and took his last adieu.
The vessel went before a merry gale,
And for quick passage put on every sail;
But when least feared, and even in open day,
The mischief overtook her in the way:
Whether she sprung a leak, I cannot find,
Or whether she was overset with wind,
Or that some rock below her bottom rent,
But down at once with all the crew she went.
Her fellow-ships from far her loss descried;
But only she was sunk, and all were safe beside.
By this example you are taught again,
That dreams and visions are not always vain;
But if, dear Partlet, you are yet in doubt,
Another tale shall make the former out.
Kenelm, the son of Kenulph, Mercia's king,
Whose holy life the legends loudly sing,
Warned in a dream, his murder did foretel,
From point to point as after it befel :
All circumstances to his nurse he told,
(A wonder from a child of seven years old ;)
The dream with horror heard, the good old wife
From treason counselled him to guard his life;
But close to keep the secret in his mind,
For a boy's vision small belief would find.
The pious child, by promise bound, obeyed,
Nor was the fatal murder long delayed;
By Quenda slain, he fell before his time,
Made a young martyr by his sister's crime.
* Kenelm, son of Kenulph, king of Mercia, was murdered at the age of seven years by his sister Quendreda, and accounted a martyr.
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