John Riley
Poems for Dreamers
4 The Jeweller
the dreamer, the persistent literalist, who even so
has converse with the dead &
because he fails altogether to understand
brings back an exact account to the living. Jerusalem,
he says, isn't that in Judeah, it can't be in these woods. the
brightness of the woods, the shining jewels
in the stream he has not recognised as the shine
in his own dream of the walls of the city of
the dead. calling across the river which Lancelot
thought he had crossed. a sword-bridge indeed! the land
whence no man returns or the city of the matchless
brides. the dead live normally & cannot return or else
they are adorned with pearls & live across the beautiful
river in the new city of light, into which the living
may never enter. gazing in wonder across
the brightness, even weak with the fragrance
of the wood & dazzled by the hopeless splendour
of the dead, in his eyes & ears the dreamer
cannot hold the radiance but is ravished
with its bliss & returns to the living.
Page(s) 12
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