Narrative account of a dream, Op. 39

1.
'Tis a poet's duty, and his daily task - to dream
For will and toil; for his day and night,
To fill his realms with pain and delight;
To retain his dreams, to pen down his diary,
To invoke his visions from memory, to call
With golden tongue, to play a siren-song to enthrall,
His audience, who with vampires' drain
Beseech those who with words do entertain.
So too I, when yesternight in my dreams did wreathe;
And wrangle and dream; There was a field most strange,
A labyrinth of corridors, whose massive bleached range
I shall explore; for your delight, to conjure.

2.
Ours was a nation so isolated and endless,
Its presence made awe with spacious excess;
The walls were pallid and white; on and on,
They ran, split, merged; like a living thing,
Whose breadth an enternity went, or perhaps a ring;
Some world-serpent, to name some names,
Jormungand, or Nidhogg; But nevermind those,
For endless conclaves the passages did enclose,
And there did teem a folk of twisted men;
Imps and dwarves, giants too; to whom men did make
The blind order of sundry dreams; yet for my sake
They did fear but one, and I among them too.

3.
For in the winding corridors there did roam,
Some figures of horror, nameless and vast,
Their sight evaded me; only the terror they cast
Was present, yet that was all and ever; that fear
Was the defining law of that so strange place,
A vivid nightmare; I did think theirs was a real race;
The critters that fled night, the shades that made pursuit.
Yet allow me elaboration, the shapes were simple;
At first there was none, a blob that edgeless onwards leant,
Then more complex, a crouching form, twisted and bent
A thing of sorcery; a witch upon her cauldron, such a shape,
Head out-thrust, jawless mouth open and agape.

4.
These beings of nightmare born, my mind's dreamy spawn,
Did seek their source, to them I was drawn,
And though I would them evade, unheeded my way
Like treason lead to them, and mindlessly they to I.
Yet not all was a-dream, for I very well still knew,
That I lived and was, and with familiar and persistent view
Sought to make myself, then sought wisdom, then to flee.
'Twas a dream within a dream, I set my sight to be free,
And the dream did mock me, I remember; yet no more,
The dream shifts and turns, its a state fluid and intense,
Where one is at once aware, and then without a sense;
At once a god or deity, yet then still a puppet.

5.
That dream too, shifted and turned, danced away,
Soon changed partners, and its a striking visions,
Did muddle and change to another, so too here;
Things of pain turn to pleasure, and delight to fear;
Yet all the same, I could not flee, nor twist my state,
And for a night worthy of eternity, the bleached maze
Followed my lead; though that dream's now a haze,
The reader knows, for dreams of all ever are,
The attention they command last but a night,
Their imprint like a mist disperses during the light;
Yet let it be said, 'twas no dream of pain or desire,
For I still seek to be free, and woke my loins in fire.