Unknown Story

I dreamt a dream tonight.



he is the Egyptian ’ magician, and he comes In shape no larger than a musclemen, Drawn with a team of little cats blacker than the darkest side of the moon, Which run over men’s noses as they lie asleep. His chariot spokes made of long beetle legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, His traces

Why, may one ask?



O, then I see The mummy Imhotep hast put his sorcery

over you while you slept.

Peace, peace, Hyde, peace.Thou talk’st of nothing.

 True, I talk of dreams Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air

And in this state he gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; On courtiers’ kneesthat dream on cur’sies straight,



O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;

Sometimes he driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades

and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two And sleeps again

This is that very Imhotep

That plats the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage.

This is she—