The Dream Poem by Juan Francisco Manzano

ADDRESSED TO MY YOUNGER BROTHER.


THOU knowest, dear Florence, my sufferings of old,
The struggles maintained with oppression for years,
We shared them together, and each was consoled
With the whispers of love that were mingled with tears.


But now, far apart, this sad pleasure is gone,
We mingle our sighs and our sorrows no more;
The course is a new one that each has to run,
And dreary the prospect for either in store.


But in slumber, our spirits, at least, shall commune,
Behold, how they meet in the visions of sleep;
In dreams that recal early days, like the one
In my brother's remembrance, I fondly would keep.


For solitude pining, in anguish of late
The heights of Quintana I sought, for repose,
And there of seclusion enamoured, the weight
Of my cares was forgotten, I felt not my woes.


Exhausted and weary, the spell of the place
Soon weighed down my eyelids, and slumber then stole
So softly o'er nature, it left not a trace
Of trouble or sorrow, o'ercasting my soul.


I seemed to ascend like a bird in the air,
And the pinions that bore me, amazed me the more;
I gazed on the plumage of beauty so rare,
As they waved in the sun, at each effort to soar.


My spirit aspired to a happier sphere,
The buoyancy even of youth was surpassed;
One effort at flight not divested of fear,
And the flutter ensued, was successful at last.


And leaving the earth and its toils, I look down,
Or upwards I glance, and behold with surprise,
The wonders of God, and the firmament strewn
With myriads of brilliants, that spangle the skies.


The ocean of ether around me, each star
Of the zodiac shining, above either pole,
Of the earth as a point in the distance afar,
And one flap of the wing, serves to traverse the whole.

The bounds which confine the wide sea, and the height
Which separates earth from the heavenly spheres;
The moon as a shield I behold in my flight,
And each spot on its surface distinctly appears.


The valley well known of Matanzas is nigh,
And trembling, my brother, I gaze on that place,
Where, cold and forgotten, the ashes now lie
Of the parents we clung to in boyhood's embrace.


How the sight of that place sent the blood to my heart,
I shudder e'en now to recal it, and yet
I'd remind you of wrongs we were wont to impart,
And to weep o'er in secret at night when we met.


I gazed on that spot, where together we played,
Our innocent pastimes came fresh to my mind;
Our mother's caresses, the fondness displayed,
In each word and each look of a parent so kind.


The ridge of that mountain, whose fastnesses wild
The fugitives seek, I beheld, and around
Plantations were scattered of late where they toiled,
And the graves of their comrades are now to be found.

The mill-house was there and its turmoil of old,
But sick of these scenes, for too well they were known;
I looked for the stream, where in childhood I strolled
By its banks when a moment of peace was my own.


But no recollections of pleasure or pain
Could drive the remembrance of thee from my core;
I sought my dear brother, embraced him again,
But found him a slave, as I left him before.


'Oh, Florence,' I cried, 'let us fly from this place,
The gloom of a dungeon is here to affright!
'Tis dreadful as death or its terrors to face,
And hateful itself as the scaffold to sight.


'Let us fly on the wings of the wind, let us fly,
And for ever abandon so hostile a soil
As this place of our birth, where our doom is to sigh
In hapless despair, and in bondage to toil.'


To my bosom I clasped him, and winging once more
My flight in the air, I ascend with my charge,
The sultan I seem of the winds, as I soar,
A monarch whose will, sets the pris'ner at large.

Like Icarus boldly ascending on high,
I laugh at the anger of Minos, and see
A haven of freedom aloft, where I fly,
And the place where the slave from his master is free.


The rapture which Dædalus inly approved
To Athens from Crete, when pursuing his flight,
On impetuous pinions, I felt when I moved
Through an ocean of ether, so boundless and bright.


But the moment I triumphed o'er earth and its fears,
And dreamt of aspiring to heavenly joys:
Of hearing the music divine of the spheres,
And tasting of pleasure that care never cloys.


I saw in an instant, the face of the skies
So bright and serene but a moment before;
Enveloped in gloom, and there seemed to arise
The murmur preceding the tempest's wild roar.


Beneath me, the sea into fury was lashed,
Above me, the thunder rolled loudly, and now
The hurricane round me in turbulence dashed,
And the glare of the lightning e'en flashed on my brow.

The elements all seemed in warfare to be,
And succour or help there was none to be sought;
The fate of poor Icarus seemed now for me,
And my daring attempt its own punishment brought.


'Twas then, oh, my God! that a thunder-clap came,
And the noise of its crash broke the slumbers so light,
That stole o'er my senses and fettered my frame,
And the dream was soon over, of freedom's first flight.


And waking, I saw thee, my brother, once more,
The sky was serene and my terrors were past;
But doubt there was none of the tempests of yore
And the clouds that of old, our young hopes overcast.