Soon the darkness round them changes to a vivid glare,--
Dimly in the center I descry a lonely pair;
Ah, two women,--stern the one and gloomy as the night,--
And the other gentle, like the evening in its flight.
How familiar to my eyes the two lone figures seemed!
With her smiling countenance the one upon me beamed;
Like the zigzag lightning flashed the other's piercing eye;
Terror seized my soul,--yet on I gazed in ecstasy.
Proudly upright stands the one, the other leans in weariness
On the solitary table, where they play a game of chess.
Pawns they barter, or they move them now from place to place;--
Then the game is lost and won,--she fades away in space,--
She who radiantly smiled, ah, she who lost the game;
Instantly the bands of children vanish whence they came.
Tumult rises; darkness deepens; but from out the night
Two eyes fix upon me, in a victor's gloating right;
Then my brain reels; I see nothing but those baleful eyes.
But what else I dreamed of in that frenzied slumber lies
Far within me hidden, buried deep beyond recall.
Could I but remember. Gone forever is it all.

MANLIUS. Remarkable, indeed, my Catiline,
Is this your dream.

CATILINE. [Meditating.] If I could but remember--
But no; my memory fails me--

MANLIUS. Brood no longer
Upon these thoughts. For what are dreams, indeed,
But pale chimeras only, darkling visions,