Persuaded of the validity of all this, I have not hesitated to reprint
even certain "epitaphs" which, once of the living, are now of the
dead, as all the others must eventually be. The objection inheres
in all forms of applied satire--my understanding of whose laws and
liberties is at least derived from reverent study of the masters.
That in respect of matters herein mentioned I have but followed their
practice can be shown by abundant instance and example.
AMBROSE BIERCE.
THE KEY NOTE
I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay
In a garden with flowers teeming.
On an island I lay in a mystical bay,
In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.
The ghost of a scent--had it followed me there
From the place where I truly was resting?
It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air,
The presence of roses attesting.
Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed
That the place was all barren of roses--
That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed,
Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses.
Full many a seaman had testified
How all who sailed near were enchanted,
And landed to search (and in searching died)
For the roses the Sirens had planted.
For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed
In the stead of their singing forever;
But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed,
Though man had discovered them never.
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