A GAS-LOG REVERIE.
As I sit, inanely staring
In the Gas-log’s lambent flame,
Far away my fancy’s faring
To a land without a name,—
To the country of Invention,
Where I roam in ecstasy,
Where all things are mere pretension,
Nothing what it seems to be.
Folded in a calm serenic,
On a jute-bank I recline,
Where, mid moss of hue arsenic,
Millinery flowers entwine.
Cambric blooms—glass-dew beshowered,
Gay with colors aniline,
Ever eagerly devoured
By the mild, condensed milch kine.
Now the scene idyllic changes
From the meadows aniline,
And my faltering fancy ranges
Down a dismal, deep decline,
Scene of some age past upheaval,
Where no foot of man has fared,
To a Gas-log grove primeval,
Where I find me, mute, and scared
Of—I know not—Goblins, Banshees,
And the ancient Gas-trees toss
Gnarled and flickering giant branches,
Hoary with asbestos moss.
Now I come to where are waving
Painted palms, precisely planned,
Rearing trunks of cocoa shaving,
By electric zephyrs fanned,
Soothing me with sound seraphic
Till I sink into a swoon,
Dreaming cineomatographic
Dreams beneath an arc-light moon.