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From the
Spanish of Pedro Calderon de la Barca
A dream it
was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me
now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was
all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine; until,
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I
towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I
burst the glittering bubble
Which my ambition had
about me blown,
And all again was darkness. Such a
dream
As this, in which I may be walking now,
Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows,
Who make
believe to listen; but anon
Kings, princes, captains,
warriors, plume and steel,
Aye, even with all your
airy theatre,
May flit into the air you seem to rend
With acclamations, leaving me to wake
In the dark
tower; or dreaming that I wake
From this that waking
is; or this and that,
Both waking and both dreaming;
such a doubt
Confounds and clouds our moral life
about.
But whether wake or dreaming, this I know,
How dreamwise human glories come and go;
Whose
momentary tenure not to break,
Walking as one who
knows he soon may wake,
So fairly carry the full cup,
so well
Disordered insolence and passion quell,
That there be nothing after to upbraid
Dreamer or
doer in the part he played;
Whether tomorrow's dawn
shall break the spell,
Or the last trumpet of the
Eternal Day,
When dreaming, with the night, shall
pass away.
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