FIFE.
Such talk of dreaming--dreaming--I begin
To doubt if I be dreaming I am Fife,
Who with a lad who call'd herself a boy
Because--I doubt there's some confusion here--
He wore no petticoat, came on a time
Riding from Muscovy on half a horse,
Who must have dreamt she was a horse entire,
To cant me off upon my hinder face
Under this tower, wall-eyed and musket-tongued,
With sentinels a-pacing up and down,
Crying All's well when all is far from well,
All the day long, and all the night, until
I dream--if what is dreaming be not waking--
Of bells a-tolling and processions rolling
With candles, crosses, banners, San-benitos,
Of which I wear the flamy-finingest,
Through streets and places throng'd with fiery faces
To some back platform--
Oh, I shall take a fire into my hand
With thinking of my own dear Muscovy--
Only just over that Sierra there,
By which we tumbled headlong into--No-land.
Now, if without a bullet after me,
I could but get a peep of my old home
Perhaps of my own mule to take me there--
All's still--perhaps the gentlemen within
Are dreaming it is night behind their masks--
God send 'em a good nightmare!--Now then--Hark!
Voices--and up the rocks--and armed men