The Olórë Mallë

“Night has brought to those who sleep only dreams they cannot keep.”

            -Paint the Sky with Stars, by Enya

“Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhaps become one.”

            -Novalis

The Pathway of Dreams where is naught as it seems
leads from the light of the moon:
from the celestial bower of the Selenite’s tower
into the sleeping child’s room.
The spidery stair of filigree hair
through the darkened sky spins and twines
finding its way where the night sylphs play
and dance on its silver-white lines.

The child where he lies dreams of brilliant blue skies,
of strong soaring birds on the wing,
of green grass and tall trees whose boughs in the breeze
whisper and blow and sing.
The child does not know what awakened him so,
for it seems, and he thinks he’s awake.
Out the window he sees, undisturbed by the breeze
the ladder the selenites make.

He sees not with fright but endless delight
the thin but spidery web:
and upward he climbs with a laugh like gold chimes
out of his room and his bed.
He does not tire as he climbs higher, higher,
high above the firmament’s cloud
or where wind doth blow. He looks down below
and delighted exclaims aloud.

Twinkling lights in the town shone for miles around,
though many were silent in sleep.
He kept going up to the rim of Earth’s cup
and the bottom of Heaven Deep,[1]
until at last where Earth’s shadows pass,
he came to the moon’s brilliant side
and passed it by, going on to fly
to the place where the Shadows abide.[2]

He began to be scared for in darkness he fared
when he saw a bright glimmer afar;
as nearer it came his heart rose the same,
and his face shone in joy as a star.
A garden of light he saw with delight
amidst white moon-rocks cold.
The trees were green with a light silver sheen
and the flowers were shod with gold.

There children played and music was made,
and laughter alight on the air
made his young heart soar unlike ever before;
he alighted from silver stair
with bare feet on dew all a’sparkling new
translucent orbs that hung
with diaphanous sheen on grass bright and green.
where they trembled, quivered, were flung.[3]

There were beautiful creatures with bright fair features-
the sprites of wood and streams
with flowers on hems of their garments, and gems;
they danced the dance of dreams.
And as they sang the woods around rang
and the children giggled like brothers.
The boy joined the fun and began to run
and chatter and play with the others.

He played in the glade until he was bade
to say farewell to his friends.
Then it faded away to the breaking day
and there his journey ends.
He awoke in his bed and cried out in dread
for his heart was rent in despair.
It was all a dream and now it would seem
there was no other place so fair.

But as his tears fell a fragrant smell
he thought that he knew from afar
wafted by on the air. He looked down where
in his hand was a yellow nenuphar
from the garden of dreams where is naught as seems,
and where woodland dryads twirl,
where children play and laugh so gay
beyond the end of the world.

**References in this poem are made to The Book of Lost Tales I, Roverandom, and “The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon” by J.R.R. Tolkien.**