one else in the world, but I thought in my dream that
I was frightened when I saw him, for his face had changed
so, it was so bright and almost transparent, and his
eyes gleamed and shone as I had never seen them do
before. Oh! he was so wondrously beautiful,
so fearfully beautiful! and as I looked at him the
distant music swelled, and seemed to come close up
to me, and then swept by us, and fainted away, at
last died off entirely; and then I felt sick at heart,
and faint, and parched, and I stooped to drink of
the water of the river, and as soon as the water touched
my lips, lo! the river vanished, and the flat country
with its poppies and lilies, and I dreamed that I was
in a boat by myself again, floating in an almost land-locked
bay of the northern sea, under a cliff of dark basalt.
I was lying on my back in the boat, looking up at
the intensely blue sky, and a long low swell from
the outer sea lifted the boat up and let it fall again
and carried it gradually nearer and nearer towards
the dark cliff; and as I moved on, I saw at last,
on the top of the cliff, a castle, with many towers,
and on the highest tower of the castle there was a
great white banner floating, with a red chevron on
it, and three golden stars on the chevron; presently
I saw too on one of the towers, growing in a cranny
of the worn stones, a great bunch of golden and blood-red
wall-flowers, and I watched the wall-flowers and banner
for long; when suddenly I heard a trumpet blow from
the castle, and saw a rush of armed men on to the battlements,
and there was a fierce fight, till at last it was ended,
and one went to the banner and pulled it down, and
cast it over the cliff in to the sea, and it came
down in long sweeps, with the wind making little ripples
in it;—slowly, slowly it came, till at
last it fell over me and covered me from my feet till
over my breast, and I let it stay there and looked
again at the castle, and then I saw that there was
an amber-coloured banner floating over the castle
in place of the red chevron, and it was much larger
than the other: also now, a man stood on the battlements,
looking towards me; he had a tilting helmet on, with
the visor down, and an amber-coloured surcoat over
his armour: his right hand was ungauntletted,
and he held it high above his head, and in his hand
was the bunch of wallflowers that I had seen growing
on the wall; and his hand was white and small like
a woman’s, for in my dream I could see even
very far-off things much clearer than we see real material
things on the earth: presently he threw the wallflowers
over the cliff, and they fell in the boat just behind
my head, and then I saw, looking down from the battlements
of the castle, Amyot. He looked down towards
me very sorrowfully, I thought, but, even as in the
other dream, said nothing; so I thought in my dream
that I wept for very pity, and for love of him, for
he looked as a man just risen from a long illness,
and who will carry till he dies a dull pain about