Part XXX.

DREAMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

DREAMS, ANCIENT AND

MODERN.

DREAM OF ACHILLES.

HOMER.

He spoke; they hear him and the word obey:
The rage of hunger and of thirst allay,
Then ease in sleep the labours of the day.

But great Pelides, stretched along the shore,
Where, dashed on rocks, the broken billows roar,
Lies inly groaning; while on either hand
The martial myrmidons confusedly stand:
Along the grass his languid members fall,
Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall:
Hushed by the murmurs of the rolling deep,
At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep.
When lo! the shade before his closing eyes
Of sad Patroclus rose, or seemed to rise;
In the same robe he living wore he came,
In stature, voice, and pleasing look the same.
The form familiar hovered o'er his head,

"And sleeps Achilles!"-thus the phantom said-
"Sleeps my Achilles, his Patcrolus dead?
Living I seemed his dearest, tenderest care,
But now, forgot, I wander in the air:

Let my pale corse the rights of burial know,
And give me entrance in the realms below;

288

DREAM OF ACHILLES.

Till then the spirit finds no resting place,
But here and there the unbodied spectres chase
The vagrant dead around the dark abode,
Forbid to cross th' irremeable flood.

Now give thy hand, for to the farther shore,
When once we pass, the soul returns no more.
When once the last funereal flames ascend

No more shall meet Achilles and his friend;

No more our thoughts to those we loved make known,

Or quit the dearest to converse alone.

Me fate has severed from the sons of earth,

The fate fore-doomed that waited from my birth.
Thee, too, it waits; before the Trojan wall
Even great and godlike thou art doomed to fall.
Hear, then, and as in fate and love we join,
Ah, suffer that my bones may rest with thine!
Together have we lived, together bred,
One house received us, and one table fed;
That golden urn thy goddess mother gave
May mix our ashes in one common grave."
"And is it thou ?" he answers, "to my sight
Once more return'st thou from the realms of night?
Oh, more than brother! think each offer paid,

Whate'er can rest a discontented shade;

But grant one last embrace, unhappy boy!

Afford at least that melancholy joy."

He said, and with his longing arms essayed

In vain to grasp the visionary shade;

Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly,

And hears a feeble lamentable cry.

Confused he wakes; amazement breaks the bands
Of golden sleep, and starting from the sands,

Pensive he muses with uplifted hands.

""Tis true, tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains :

The form subsists without the body's aid,

Aërial semblance and an empty shade!
This night my friend, so late in battle lost,
Stood at my side, a pensive plaintive ghost;
Even now, familiar as in life he came;

Alas, how different! yet how like the same!"

Thus, while he spake, each eye grew big with tears.—Iliad.

A PRECOCIOUS INFANT.

289

DREAM OF THE MOTHER OF ZARTUSHT.

ZARTUSHT-BEHRAM.

The following is the dream that heralded the birth of Zartusht, or Zoroaster, the great prophet and teacher of the Persians:

She dreamed she wondering marked in heaven's clear skies

A cloud like to an eagle's pinion rise.

So thick a gloom its gathering shadow spread,

The sun is veiled, the day grows dark and dread;

And from that cloud no rain, but, strange to tell,

Lions and tigers, wolves and dragons fell:
The crocodile and panther of the waste,

All that is horrible, misshapen, vast:
The writhing serpent, and the bird obscene,
All things detested that the eye has seen,
Or fancy feigned, and still with gathering storm
Fast falls each savage shape and grisly form.
Sudden from forth that phantom train appears
One who than all a ghastlier semblance wears.
On Daghdú rushing, in her tender side,
The direful monster tore an opening wide,
And thence the infant Zartusht in his grasp

Dragged forth to light-death seemed in every gasp.
But on their prey, ere yet those jaws could close,
Loud threatening shouts as those of men arose,

And in that hour of seeming misery,

While hapless Daghdú strove for aid to cry—
"Wail not," her infant said, "for not from these
Shall harm approach me or destruction seize.
God is my guardian and protection. He

From every evil thing shall keep me free;

Then dread not, though you view assembled here

These monsters grim, and loathsome forms of fear."

Cheered with these words the mother calms her care,
When, lo! a hill descends from upper air,
And from its side beams forth refulgent light,
Dispels the clouds and breaks the gloom of night.