lence of the sea
To those who brave its billows?"

"Dreams?" smiled the Shadow. "What I see right well
Your eyes may not behold. Yet can I tell
Their import as unravelled
By subtler sense, whilst through these souls they pass!
What said the demon to _Don Cleophas_
As o'er Madrid they travelled?

"Such dreams as haunt us near the glimmering morn
Shadow forth truth; these through the Gates of Horn
Find passage to the sleeper.
Prophetic? Nay! But sense therein may read
The heart's desire, in pangs of love or greed;
What divination deeper?

"Yon Statesman, struggling in the nightmare's grip,
Fears he has let Time's scanty forelock slip,
And lost a great occasion
Of self-advancement. How that mouth's a-writhe
With hate, on platforms oft so blandly blithe
In golden-tongued persuasion!

"He, blindly blundering, as through baffling mist,
Is a professional philanthropist,
Rosy-gilled, genial, hearty.
A mouthing Friend of Man. He dreams he's deep
In jungles of self-interest, where creep
Sleuth-hounds of creed and party.

"That sleek-browed sleeper? 'Tis the Great Pooh-pooh,
The 'Mugwump' of the _Weekly Whillaloo_,
A most superior creature;
Too high for pity and too cold for wrath;
The pride of dawdlers on the Higher Path
Suffuses every feature.

"Contemptuous, he, of clamorous party strife,
And all the hot activities of life;
But most the Politician
He mocks--for 'meanness.' How the prig would gasp
If shown the slime-trail of that wriggling asp
In his own haunts Elysian!

"He dreams Creation, cleared of vulgar noise,
Is dedicate to calm aesthetic joys,
That he is limply lolling
Amidst the lilies that toil not nor spin,
Given quite to dandy scorn, and dainty sin,
And languor, and 'log-rolling.'

"The head which on that lace-trimmed pillow lies
Is fair as Psyche's. Yes, those snow-veiled eyes
Look Dian-pure and saintly.
Sure no Aholibah could own those lips,
Through whose soft lusciousness the bland breath slips
So fragrantly and faintly.

"That up-curved arm which bears the silken knot
Of dusky hair, is it more free from blot
Than is her soul who slumbers?
Her visions? Of 'desirable young men,'
Who crowd round her like swine round Circe's pen
In ever-swelling numbers.

"Of Love? Nay, but of lovers. Love's a lean
And