Explore "The Forest of Dreams" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. Where was I last Friday night? -- / Within the forest of dark dreams / Following the blur of a goblin-light, / That led me over ugly streams, / Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread, / And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams; / Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead, / Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze: / And the jack-o'-lantern light that led, / Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead, / And the owl-like things at airy cruise.
II. Where was I last Friday night? -- / Within the forest of dark dreams / Following a form of shadowy white / With my own wild face it seems. / Did a raven's wing just flap my hair? / Or a web-winged bat brush by my face? / Or the hand of -- something I did not dare / Look round to see in that obscene place? / Where the boughs, with leaves a-devil's-dance, / And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan, / Had more than a strange significance / Of life and of evil not their own.