The wind at night upon his raven wing
has made of all my dreams a subtle theft;
and now in hell he feeds them to his queen
Demeter's daughter of the earth bereft.
Goddess of sleep who lies in hell and dreams
and dines on dreams until the bones are left;
I cannot sleep until that Proserpine
resigns the dreams of which she has made theft.
But dreams that come from hell will not bring rest.
The maggot-visaged child will not allow
a dream slip by she has not made grotesque;
nor sleep to steal upon the troubled brow,
except in dreams she share her old distress
and trace her likeness in a sleeping frown.


B. N. Harrison
May 2003

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