The Dream of Sardanapalus

In art & dream may you proceed with abandon ... In Life may you proceed with balance & stealth
[Patti Smith]


The Dream of Sardanapalus, Ford Madox Brown










SARDANAPALUS: I saw, that is, I dreamed myself















Here—here—even where we are, guests as we were,















Myself a host that deemed himself but guest,















Willing to equal all in social freedom;















But, on my right hand and my left, instead















Of thee and Zames, and our customed meeting,















Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, dark,















And deadly face; I could not recognise it,















Yet I had seen it, though I knew not where:















The features were a giant's, and the eye















Was still, yet lighted; his long locks curled down















On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose















With shaft-heads feathered from the eagle's wing,















That peeped up bristling through his serpent hair.















I invited him to fill the cup which stood















Between us, but he answered not; I filled it;















He took it not, but stared upon me, till















I trembled at the fixed glare of his eye:















I frowned upon him as a king should frown;















He frowned not in his turn, but looked upon me















With the same aspect, which appalled me more,















Because it changed not; and I turned for refuge















To milder guests, and sought them on the right,















Where thou wert wont to be. But—















In thy own chair—thy own place in the banquet—















I sought thy sweet face in the circle—but















Instead—a grey-haired, withered, bloody-eyed,















And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing,















Female in garb, and crowned upon the brow,















Furrowed with years, yet sneering with the passion















Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust,















Sate—my veins curdled! Upon















Her right hand—her lank, bird-like, right hand—stood















A goblet, bubbling o'er with blood; and on















Her left, another, filled with—what I saw not,















But turned from it and her. But all along















The table sate a range of crowned wretches,















Of various aspects, but of one expression.















It was so palpable, I could have touched them.















I turned from one face to another, in















The hope to find at last one which I knew















Ere I saw theirs: but no—all turned upon me,















And stared, but neither ate nor drank, but stared,















Till I grew stone, as they seemed half to be,















Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in them,















And life in me: there was a horrid kind















Of sympathy between us, as if they















Had lost a part of death to come to me,















And I the half of life to sit by them.















We were in an existence all apart















From heaven or earth—And rather let me see















Death all than such a being!















At last I sate, marble, as they, when rose















The Hunter and the Crone; and smiling on me—















Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of















The Hunter smiled upon me—I should say,















His lips, for his eyes moved not—and the woman's















Thin lips relaxed to something like a smile.















Both rose, and the crowned figures on each hand















Rose also, as if aping their chief shades—















Mere mimics even in death—but I sate still:















A desperate courage crept through every limb,















And at the last I feared them not, but laughed















Full in their phantom faces. But then—then















The Hunter laid his hand on mine: I took it,















And grasped it—but it melted from my own;















While he too vanished, and left nothing but















The memory of a hero, for he looked so.















Aye, Myrrha, but the woman,















The female who remained, she flew upon me,















And burnt my lips up with her noisome kisses;















And, flinging down the goblets on each hand,















Methought their poisons flowed around us, till















Each formed a hideous river. Still she clung;















The other phantoms, like a row of statues,















Stood dull as in our temples, but she still















Embraced me, while I shrunk from her, as if,















In lieu of her remote descendant, I















Had been the son who slew her for her incest.















Then—then—a chaos of all loathsome things















Thronged thick and shapeless: I was dead, yet feeling—















Buried, and raised again—consumed by worms,















Purged by the flames, and withered in the air!















I can fix nothing further of my thoughts,















Save that I longed for thee, and sought for thee,















In all these agonies—and woke and found thee.






BYRON
































From a place apart, Morpheus, god of dreams, awakes.

Detached from the benevolent folds of the muse he presses

against the blue and burns into form. Flying high, with

neither love nor remorse, he regards his charge - a young man asleep within the cloth of a voyage, which is turning,

ever so slowly, even as the widening skirt of an ecstatic.

[Patti Smith 1996]




To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life ...

[Pater]