IN THE LAND OF DREAMS

Each night, as my Spirit roams
In spheres of slumber vast,
I become a hermit and renounce
My title, body-form, possessions, creeds—
Breaking the self-erected prison walls
of flesh and earthly limitations;
I am an all-pervading Son of God,
No longer caged in brittle, dingy clod,
Nor tied by tangible cords of birth,
Or man-made smallness, social standing,
And duty-shadows of earth.

There in sleepland's ether eternal,
I have no country, no homeland dear;
Nor am I Hindu or Christian seer;
Nor Occidental nor Oriental,
Race-bound behind the bars of inheritance.
In dreamland's limitless acres,
My Spirit revels in freedom—
Its only religion freedom—
Gypsying gaily there,
Pilfering joy from everywhere.
There, no lordling god o'ershadows me,
For there is none but Myself to rule myself.
Behold, the slave-man hath become the God!
The sleeping mortal, the awakened, deathless Lord!
An unseen, unheard God am I,
Drinking, breathing gladness;
Gliding in winged glory
Through the endless land!
Free from haunting fears
Or possible crash and shattered skull
No solids there to give me hurt,
No liquids to drown me deep;
No vile, dank vapors to choke me,
No fire my unseen form to burn.

Free from e'en the memory
Of a fragile body-dream,
O'er all space am I spread.
All things am I!
How, then, could aught
Dare injure me?
The heart of the big Myself
Would break
If it should strike
The little myself.
Unknown to others, but known to Myself,
I wake and walk and dream,
Eat and drink and glide in Joy.
I Myself am the Joy which I so sought—
And I am that Joy which everyone seeks.
So little, ah, so little was I
When I dreamt in my sleepy-wakefulness.
Boundless big am I when I am awake
In my sleepless-wakefulness!