10 
LAIND & WATER 
July 5, 1917 
The Inn of a Thousand Dreams 
By Gilbert Frankau 
W 
HERE the road climbs free from the tmrsh and 
the sea 
To the last rose sunset-gleams, 
Tivixt a fold and a fold of the Kentish wold 
Stands the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
No man may ride with map for guide 
And win that tavern-door ; 
As none shall come by rule of thumb 
To our blue-bells' dancing floor : 
For no path leads through Churchyards Meads 
And the fringes of Daffodil wood, 
To the heart of the glade where the flower-folk played 
In the days when the gods were good. 
Who hastes our wold with naught but gold, 
Who seeks but food and wine, 
Tlic wood-folk wise shall blind his eyes 
To the creaking tavern-sign ; 
He shall know the goad of the folk of the road 
And his led wheels shall not find 
The gabled beams that sheltered our dreams 
In the nights when the gods were kind. 
We had never a chart save our own sure heart 
And the summoning sunset-gleams 
When you rode with me from the marsh and the sea 
To the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
No sign-post showed the curved hill-road 
Our purring engines clomb, 
r"rom where dead forts of dying ports 
Loomed gray against gray foam ; 
We had never a book for the way we took, 
But the oast-house chimney-vanes 
Stretched bfeckoning hands o'er the lambing-lands 
To point us their Kentish lanes. 
As certciin-true our track we flew, 
As nesting swiftsures flit, 
By stream and down and county-town. 
And orchards blossom-lit : ' 
For Pan's own heels were guiding our wheels, 
And Pan's self checked our speed 
In the spire-crowned street where the by-ways meet 
For a sign of the place decreed. 
Rose-impearled o'er a wonder-world 
Glowed the last of the sunset-gleams ; 
And we knew that fate had led to the gate 
Of the Inn of our Thousand Dreams. 
Who needs must pique with kitchen-freak ^ 
His jaded appetite. 
He shall not know our set cloth's snow, 
Our primrose candle-light ; 
We had never a need of the waiter breed 
Or an alien bandsman's blare. 
When we pledged a toast to our landlord host 
As he served us his goodwife's fare. 
As right of guest they gave their best ; 
No hireling hands outspread . 
White bridal-dress from linen-press. 
To drape our marriage bed : 
They had never a thought for the price wc brought, 
The simple folk and the line. 
Who made us free of their hostelry 
In the night when all dreams were mine. 
When the trench-lights rise to the storm-dark skves 
Where the gun-flash flickers and gleams, 
My soul flies free o'er an English sea 
To the Inn of a Thousand Dreams. 
Once more we flit, hands passion-knit. 
By marsh and murmuring shore. 
By Tcnterden and Bennenden, 
To our own tavern-door : 
As again we go, where the sunsets glow 
On the beech-tree's silvern plinth, 
Down wood-paths set with violet 
And Spring's wild hyacinth. 
Once more we pass, by roads of grass, 
To find for our delight 
Trim garden-plots, and shepherds' cots — 
Half-timbered, black-and-white . . . 
There is never one gash of a shrapnel-splash 
On the wall* of the street we roam, 
Where the forge-irons ring for our welcoming 
As the twiUght calls us home. 
Till the trench-lights pale on the gray dawn-veil 
Of the first wan sunrise-gleams. 
My sold would hide with its spirit-bride 
At the Inn of a Thousand Dreads. 
Once more I press, in tenderness, 
(Dear God, that jdreams were true 1 ) 
Your linger-tips against these lips 
Your own red-rose lips knew. 
In the middle night when your throat gleamed white 
On your dark hair's pillowed sheen. 
And your eyes were the pools that a moonbekm cools 
•For the feet of a fiiery queen. 
Woman o' mine,, heart's anodyne 
Against unkindly fate, 
Love's aureole about my soul, 
Wife, mistress, comrade, mate ! 
I stretch ghost-hands from the stricken lands 
Where my earth-bound body lies. 
To touch your fair smooth brow, your hair. 
Your lips, your sleeping eyes : 
You are living warm in the crook of my arm, 
You are pearl in the firelight-gleams . . . 
Till the blind night rocks with the cannon-shocks 
Thai shatter a thousand dreams, 
Flanders, June, 1916. 
