A morbid dream obsessively
weighs on me lately.
I see it only hazily.
Why does it hate me?

Within it I betray and lie,
fawning and crawling.
I never would have thought that I
was so appalling.

I clench my fists, put on a show,
cursing and damning,
Although I know, and others know,
I’m only shamming.

The dream grows dim and dimmer still,
I hope it’s vanished.
It reappears, against my will
to see it banished.

I do not stride, I mince along,
acting, dissembling.
I keep in step, don’t get it wrong,
in fear and trembling.

I crawl to men more strong than I,
I’m weak and shaken.
I loathe myself, but though I try,
I can’t awaken.

Here madness lies! I hear a groan.
Acutely, plainly.
I hear myself, the dream’s my own,
I argue vainly.

I wake, and hear that groan again,
the dream is finished.
I open up my eyes with pain,
but fear’s diminished.

As I lie prone upon the bed,
the dream’s before me.
Have dreams come true? This thought
like lead hangs grimly o’er me.

I feel a shudder down my spine.
I mutter hoarsely.
Did the dream show this soul of mine
in truth, or falsely?

But it was just a dream, forsooth!
How lucky for me.
Yet could that dream have told the truth
in how it saw me?

Do dreams reflect thoughts from the day?
It can’t be true, though!
And yet, in some distorted way,
they seem to do so.

 
 
 
 

And now, they’d put me to the test?
I’ve no heart for it.
I’m just a coward, like all the rest,
though I abhor it.

Conform, they say, and have no fear;
they’ll be forgiving.
And now I know, the dream is here.
It’s what I’m living.