The Fallen Dream

Now trembles fell eternally
The ground of the dreamer’s country.
Once it shone holy and bright
For the drifters who sail the night,
Now ever-present the lightning vein
Roars in terror o’er the terrain
And demons pitiless now dress
In melancholy gown the bleak wilderness
And what dreamers view it now alas
Weep strangled dew to drown the grass.

Fallen now are the star-robed towers,
Rusted the thorns of the bejeweled flowers
And on the mirthless winds there intrude
Sighs of mourning on the storm-swept solitude
While Death amid the ruin laughs
The rhythm of unspoken epitaphs
Of open graves that drowned lie
In the tears that plague the sky
Falling, ah falling misery in the cruel night
Begirt in woe of the moon’s obscured light.

And on the dead who dream no more
In infernal sorrow the rains restlessly pour,
Their slumber haunted by the scream
Of he who travels in a dream
To the fallen kingdom where there reign
The horrid Lords of Remorse and of Pain
Who—usurper terrors—now dwell
On thrones where blisses of yore tragically fell,

And he who views that strange wilderness
Perceives not but a still loneliness
And what stars that dare align
Gather their rays on each fallen shrine
Where all prayers of this realm once blessed
Have rotted in eternal rest;
That to Heaven’s vast enterprise
Never took wing and so failed to rise.

Perhaps if but one loving, deep prayer
Had ascended the pearl of Heaven’s high stair
A holy wind would happily blow
Away miasmal poisons that flow,
That choke the struggling ray
When rare soar the wings of day.

So frail the veil that doth pendulous sway
Between dream and nightmare in our psyches of clay.
Beware any path where thy footfall may stray,
For this land shall bear thee away
And to no angel mayst thou pray,
For demonic hands hold their blessed chords at bay.

Beware ye drifting the low tide of sleep,
For thy shriveled soul, naked, the foul Lords shall keep
And this once fair, lost country
More than Hell in its eternity
Shall hold thee to its chill, weeping core
And thou shalt slumber to the waken no more.