Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 05.djvu/23

 I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay
 * In a garden with flowers teeming—

On an island I lay, in a mystical bay,
 * In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.

The ghost of a scent— had it followed me there
 * From the place where I truly was resting?

It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air,
 * The presence of roses attesting.

Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed
 * That the place was all barren of roses —

That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed.
 * Was the Isle of Bedeviled Noses.

Full many a seaman had testified
 * How all who sailed near were enchanted,

And landed to search (and in searching died)
 * For the roses the Sirens had planted.

For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed
 * In the stead of their singing forever;

But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed,
 * Though man had discovered them never.

19