and the earl
entered. His face was ghastly pale; his eyes were wide open; he came
straight towards them. But he did not see them; or if he did, he saw
them but as phantoms of the dream in which he was walking--phantoms
which had not yet become active in the dream. He drew a chair to the
embers, in his fancy doubtless a great fire, sat for a moment or two
gazing into them, rose, went the whole length of the room, took down a
book, returned with it to the fire, drew towards him Arctura's tiny
taper, opened the book, and began to read in an audible murmur. Donal,
trying afterwards to recall and set down what he had heard, wrote
nothing better than this:--

In the heart of the earth-cave
Lay the king.
Through chancel and choir and nave
The bells ring.

Said the worm at his side,
Sweet fool,
Turn to thy bride;
Is the night so cool?
Wouldst thou lie like a stone till the aching morn
Out of the dark be born?

Heavily pressed the night enorm,
But he heard the voice of the worm,
Like the sound of a muttered thunder low,
In the realms where no feet go.

And he said, I will rise,
I will will myself glad;
I will open my eyes,
And no more sleep sad.

For who is a god
But the man who can spring
Up from the sod,
And be his own king?

I will model my gladness,
Dig my despair--
And let goodness or badness
Be folly's own care!

I will be content,
And the world shall spin round
Till its force be outspent.
It shall drop
Like a top
Spun by a boy,
While I sit in my tent,
In a featureless joy--
Sit without sound,
And toss up my world,
Till it burst and be drowned
In the blackness upcurled
From the deep hell-ground.

The dreams of a god
Are the worlds of his slaves:
I will be my own god,
And rule my own knaves!

He went on in this way for some minutes; then the rimes grew less
perfect, and the utterance sank into measured prose. The tone of the
speaker showed that he took the stuff for glowing verse, and regarded
it as embodying his own present consciousness. One might have thought
the worm would have a word to say in rejoinder; but no; the worm had
vanished, and the buried dreamer had made himself a god--his own god!
Donal stole up softly behind him, and peeped at the open book: it was
the Novum Organum!

They glided out of the room, and left the dreamer to his dreams.

"Do you think," said Donal, "I ought to tell Simmon