A Dream

by Matthew Aronold

Was it a dream? We sail’d, I thought we sail’d,
Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream,
Border’d, each bank, with pines; the morning sun,
On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,
5On the red pinings of their forest-floor,
Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines
The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change
Of bright-leaf’d chestnuts and moss’d walnut-trees
And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.
10Swiss chalets glitter’d on the dewy slopes,
And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came
Notes of wild pastoral music over all
Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow.
Upon the mossy rocks at the stream’s edge,
15Back’d by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood,
Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant’s leaves
Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof
Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within,
Under the eaves, peer’d rows of Indian corn.
20We shot beneath the cottage with the stream.
On the brown, rude-carved balcony, two forms
Came forth Olivia’s, Marguerite! and thine.
Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast;
Straw hats bedeck’d their heads, with ribbons blue,
25Which danced, and on their shoulders, fluttering, play’d.
They saw us, they conferred; their bosoms heaved,
And more than mortal impulse fill’d their eyes.
Their lips moved; their white arms, waved eagerly,
Flash’d once, like falling streams; we rose, we gazed.
30One moment, on the rapid’s top, our boat
Hung poised and then the darting river of Life
(Such now, methought, it was), the river of Life,
Loud thundering, bore us by; swift, swift it foam’d,
Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone.
35Soon the plank’d cottage by the sun-warm’d pines
Faded the moss the rocks; us burning plains,
Bristled with cities, us the sea received.