Yet I had forgotten the way to those little cottages on the edge of the fields we know whose upper windows, though dim with antique cobwebs, look out on the fields we know not and are the starting-point of all adventure in all the Lands of Dream.
I therefore made enquiries. And so I came to be directed to the shop of a dreamer who lives not far from the Embankment in the City. Among so many streets as there are in the city it is little wonder that there is one that has never been seen before; it is named Go-by Street and runs out of the Strand4 if you look very closely. Now when you enter this man's shop you do not go straight to the point but you ask him to sell you something, and if it is anything with which he can supply you he hands it you and wishes you good-morning. It is his way. And many have been deceived by asking for some unlikely thing, such as the oyster-shell from which was taken one of those single pearls that made the gates of Heaven in Revelations, and finding that the old man had it in stock.
He was comatose5 when I went into the shop, his heavy lids almost covered his little eyes; he sat, and his mouth was open. I said, "I want some of Abama and Pharpah, rivers of Damascus." "How much?" he said. "Two and a half yards of each, to be delivered to my flat." "That is very tiresome6," he muttered, "very tiresome. We do not stock it in that quantity." "Then I will take all you have," I said.
He rose laboriously7 and looked among some bottles. I saw one labelled: Nilos, river of Ægyptos; and others Holy Ganges, Phlegethon, Jordan; I was almost afraid he had it, when I heard him mutter again, "This is very tiresome," and presently he said, "We are out of it." "Then," I said, "I wish you to tell me the way to those little cottages in whose upper chambers8 poets look out upon the fields we know not, for I wish to go into the Land of Dream and to sail once more upon mighty9, sea-like Yann."
At that he moved heavily and slowly in way-worn carpet slippers10, panting as he went, to the back part of his shop, and I went with him. This was a dingy11 lumber-room full of idols12: the near end was dingy and dark but at the far end was a blue cærulean glow in which stars seemed to be shining and the heads of the idols glowed. "This," said the fat old man in carpet slippers, "is the heaven of the gods who sleep." I asked him what gods slept and he mentioned names that I had never heard as well as names that I knew. "All those," he said, "that are not worshipped now are asleep."
"Then does Time not kill the gods?" I said to him and he answered, "No. But for three or four thousand years a god is worshipped and for three or four he sleeps. Only Time is wakeful always."
"But they that teach us of new gods"—I said to him, "are they not new?"
"They hear the old ones stirring in their sleep being about to wake, because the dawn is breaking and the priests crow. These are the happy prophets: unhappy are they that hear some old god speak while he sleeps still being deep in slumber14, and prophesy15 and prophesy and no dawn comes, they are those that men stone saying, 'Prophesy where this stone shall hit you, and this.'"
"Then shall Time never slay16 the gods," I said. And he answered, "They shall die by the bedside of the last man. Then Time shall go mad in his solitude17 and shall not know his hours from his centuries of years and they shall clamour round him crying for recognition and he shall lay his stricken hands on their heads and stare at them blindly and say, 'My children, I do not know you one from another,' and at these words of Time empty worlds shall reel."
And for some while then I was silent, for my imagination went out into those far years and looked back at me and mocked me because I was the creature of a day.
Suddenly I was aware by the old man's heavy breathing that he had gone to sleep. It was not an ordinary shop: I feared lest one of his gods should wake and call for him: I feared many things, it was so dark, and one or two of those idols were something more than grotesque18. I shook the old man hard by one of his arms.
"Tell me the way to the cottages," I said, "on the edge of the fields we know."
"I don't think we can do that," he said.
"Then supply me," I said, "with the goods."
That brought him to his senses. He said, "You go out by the back door and turn to the right"; and he opened a little, old, dark door in the wall through which I went, and he wheezed19 and shut the door. The back of the shop was of incredible age. I saw in antique characters upon a mouldering20 board, "Licensed21 to sell weasels and jade22 earrings23." The sun was setting now and shone on little golden spires24 that gleamed along the roof which had long ago been thatched and with a wonderful straw. I saw that the whole of Go-by Street had the same strange appearance when looked at from behind. The pavement was the same as the pavement of which I was weary and of which so many thousand miles lay the other side of those houses, but the street was of most pure untrampled grass with such marvellous flowers in it that they lured25 downward from great heights the flocks of butterflies as they traveled by, going I know not whence. The other side of the street there was pavement again but no houses of any kind, and what there was in place of them I did not stop to see, for I turned to my right and walked along the back of Go-by Street till I came to the open fields and the gardens of the cottages that I sought. Huge flowers went up out of these gardens like slow rockets and burst into purple blooms and stood there huge and radiant on six-foot stalks and softly sang strange songs. Others came up beside them and bloomed and began singing too. A very old witch came out of her cottage by the back door and into the garden in which I stood.
"What are these wonderful flowers?" I said to her.
And in a lower voice I said: "What wonderful songs are they singing?" and she said, "Be still and listen."
And I listened and found they were singing of my own childhood and of things that happened there so far away that I had quite forgotten them till I heard the wonderful song.
"Why is the song so faint?" I said to her.
"Dead voices," she said, "Dead voices," and turned back again to her cottage saying: "Dead voices" still, but softly for fear that she should wake the poets. "They sleep so badly while they live," she said.
I stole on tiptoe upstairs to the little room from whose windows, looking one way, we see the fields we know and, looking another, those hilly lands that I sought—almost I feared not to find them. I looked at once toward the mountains of faëry; the afterglow of the sunset flamed on them, their avalanches27 flashed on their violet slopes coming down tremendous from emerald peaks of ice; and there was the old gap in the blue-grey hills above the precipice28 of amethyst29 whence one sees the Lands of Dream.
All was still in the room where the poets slept when I came quietly down. The old witch sat by a table with a lamp, knitting a splendid cloak of gold and green for a king that had been dead a thousand years.
"Is it any use," I said, "to the king that is dead that you sit and knit him a cloak of gold and green?"
"Who knows?" she said.
"What a silly question to ask," said her old black cat who lay curled by the fluttering fire.
Already the stars were shining on that romantic land when I closed the witch's door; already the glow-worms were mounting guard for the night around those magical cottages. I turned and trudged30 for the gap in the blue-grey mountains.
Already when I arrived some colour began to show in the amethyst precipice below the gap although it was not yet morning. I heard a rattling31 and sometimes caught a flash from those golden dragons far away below me that are the triumph of the goldsmiths of Sirdoo and were given life by the ritual incantations of the conjurer Amargrarn. On the edge of the opposite cliff, too near I thought for safety, I saw the ivory palace of Singanee that mighty elephant-hunter; small lights appeared in windows, the slaves were awake, and beginning with heavy eyelids32 the work of the day.
And now a ray of sunlight topped the world. Others than I must describe how it swept from the amethyst cliff the shadow of the black one that opposed it, how that one shaft33 of sunlight pierced the amethyst for leagues, and how the rejoicing colour leaped up to welcome the light and shot back a purple glow on the walls of the palace of ivory while down in that incredible ravine the golden dragons still played in the darkness.
At this moment a female slave came out by a door of the palace and tossed a basket-full of sapphires34 over the edge. And when day was manifest on those marvellous heights and the flare35 of the amethyst precipice filled the abyss, then the elephant-hunter arose in his ivory palace and took his terrific spear and going out by a landward door went forth36 to avenge37 Perdóndaris
I turned then and looked upon the lands of Dream, and the thin white mist that never rolls quite away was shifting in the morning. Rising like isles38 above it I saw the Hills of Hap13 and the city of copper39, old, deserted40 Bethmoora, and Utnar Véhi and Kyph and Mandaroon and the wandering leagues of Yann. Rather I guessed than saw the Hian Min whose imperturbable41 and aged42 heads scarce recognize for more than clustered mounds43 the round Acroctian hills, that are heaped about their feet and that shelter, as I remembered, Durl and Duz. But most clearly I discerned that ancient wood through which one going down to the bank of Yann whenever the moon is old may come on Bird of the River anchored there, waiting three days for travellers, as has been prophesied44 of her. And as it was now that season I hurried down from the gap in the blue-grey hills by an elfin path that was coeval45 with fable46, and came by means of it to the edge of the wood. Black though the darkness was in that ancient wood the beasts that moved in it were blacker still. It is very seldom that any dreamer travelling in Lands of Dream is ever seized by these beasts, and yet I ran; for if a man's spirit is seized in the Lands of Dream his body may survive it for many years and well know the beasts that mouthed him far away and the look in their little eyes and the smell of their breath; that is why the recreation field at Hanwell is so dreadfully trodden into restless paths.
And so I came at last to the sea-like flood of proud, tremendous Yann, with whom there tumbled streams from incredible lands—with these he went by singing. Singing he carried drift-wood and whole trees, fallen in far-away, unvisited forests, and swept them mightily47 by, but no sign was there either out in the river or in the olden anchorage near by of the ship I came to see.
And I built myself a hut and roofed it over with the huge abundant leaves of a marvellous weed and ate the meat that grows on the targar-tree and waited there three days. And all day long the river tumbled by and all night long the tolulu-bird sang on and the huge fireflies had no other care than to pour past in torrents48 of dancing sparks, and nothing rippled49 the surface of the Yann by day and nothing disturbed the tolulu-bird by night. I know not what I feared for the ship I sought and its friendly captain who came from fair Belzoond and its cheery sailors out of Durl and Duz; all day long I looked for it on the river and listened for it by night until the dancing fireflies danced me to sleep. Three times only in those three nights the tolulu-bird was scared and stopped his song, and each time I awoke with a start and found no ship and saw that he was only scared by the dawn. Those indescribable dawns upon the Yann came up like flames in some land over the hills where a magician burns by secret means enormous amethysts50 in a copper pot. I used to watch them in wonder while no bird sang—till all of a sudden the sun came over a hill and every bird but one began to sing, and the tolulu-bird slept fast, till out of an opening eye he saw the stars.
I would have waited three more days, but on the third day I had gone in my loneliness to see the very spot where first I met Bird of the River at her anchorage with her bearded captain sitting on the deck. And as I looked at the black mud of the harbour and pictured in my mind that band of sailors whom I had not seen for two years, I saw an old hulk peeping from the mud. The lapse51 of centuries seemed partly to have rotted and partly to have buried in the mud all but the prow52 of the boat and on the prow I faintly saw a name. I read it slowly— it was Bird of the River. And then I knew that, while in Ireland and London two years had barely passed over my head, ages had gone over the region of Yann and wrecked53 and rotted that once familiar ship, and buried years ago the bones of the youngest of my friends, who so often sang to me of Durl and Duz or told the dragon-legends of Belzoond. For beyond the world we know there roars a hurricane of centuries whose echo only troubles—though sorely—our fields; while elsewhere there is calm. I stayed a moment by that battered54 hulk and said a prayer for whatever may be immortal55 of those who were wont56 to sail it down the Yann, and I prayed for them to the gods to whom they loved to pray, to the little lesser57 gods that bless Belzoond. Then leaving the hut that I built to those ravenous58 years I turned my back to the Yann and entering the forest at evening just as its orchids59 were opening their petals60 to perfume the night came out of it in the morning, and passed that day along the amethyst gulf61 by the gap in the blue-grey mountains. I wondered if Singanee, that mighty elephant-hunter, had returned again with his spear to his lofty ivory palace or if his doom had been one with that of Perdóndaris. I saw a merchant at a small back door selling new sapphires as I passed the palace, then I went on and came as twilight62 fell to those small cottages where the elfin mountains are in sight of the fields we know. And I went to the old witch that I had seen before and she sat in her parlour with a red shawl round her shoulders still knitting the golden cloak, and faintly through one of her windows the elfin mountains shone and I saw again through another the fields we know.
"Tell me something," I said, "of this strange land!"
"How much do you know?" she said. "Do you know that dreams are illusion?"
"Of course I do," I said. "Every one knows that."
"Oh no they don't," she said, "the mad don't know it."
"That is true," I said.
"And do you know," she said, "that Life is illusion?"
"Of course it is not," I said. "Life is real, Life is earnest——."
At that the witch and her cat (who had not moved from her old place by the hearth) burst into laughter. I stayed some time, for there was much that I wished to ask, but when I saw that the laughter would not stop I turned and went away.
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1
plies
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的第三人称单数 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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comatose
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| adj.昏睡的，昏迷不醒的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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hap
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| n.运气；v.偶然发生 | |
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slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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prophesy
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| v.预言；预示 | |
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16
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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19
wheezed
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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licensed
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| adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词) | |
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jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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earrings
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| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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avalanches
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| n.雪崩( avalanche的名词复数 ) | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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amethyst
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| n.紫水晶 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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sapphires
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| n.蓝宝石，钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 )；蔚蓝色 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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40
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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43
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
coeval
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| adj.同时代的；n.同时代的人或事物 | |
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46
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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49
rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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50
amethysts
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| n.紫蓝色宝石( amethyst的名词复数 )；紫晶；紫水晶；紫色 | |
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51
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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52
prow
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| n.(飞机)机头，船头 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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56
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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