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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Dreamland

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Dreamland

By Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914)

UP anchor! Up anchor!

Set sail and away!

The ventures of dreamland

Are thine for a day.

Yo, heave ho!

Aloft and alow

Elf sailors are singing

Yo, heave ho!

The breeze that is blowing

So sturdily strong

Shall fill up thy sail

With the breath of a song.

A fay at the mast-head

Keeps watch o’er the sea;

Blown amber of tresses

Thy banner shall be;

Thy freight the lost laughter

That sad souls have missed,

Thy cargo the kisses

That never were kissed.

And ho, for a fay maid

Born merry in June,

Of dainty red roses

Beneath a red moon.

The star-pearls that midnight

Casts down on the sea,

Dark gold of the sunset,

Her fortune shall be.

And ever she whispers,

More tenderly sweet,

“Love am I, love only,

Love perfect, complete.

The world is my lordship,

The heart is my slave;

I mock at the ages,

I laugh at the grave.

Wilt sail with me ever

A dream-haunted sea,

Whose whispering waters

Shall murmur to thee

The love-haunted lyrics

Dead poets have made

Ere life had a fetter,

Ere love was afraid?”

Then up with the anchor!

Set sail and away!

The ventures of loveland

Are thine for a day.