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DREAMS
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awak`ning, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow:
Yes! tho` that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
`Twere better than the dull reality
Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,
A chaos of deep passion from his birth ! But should it be - that dream eternally
Continuing - as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood - should it thus be given,
`Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven!
For I have revell`d, when the sun was bright
In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light,
And left unheedingly my very heart
In climes of mine imagining - apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought - what more could I have seen? `Twas once & only once & the wild hour
From my rememberance shall not pass - some power
Or spell had bound me - `twas the chilly wind
Came o`er me in the night & left behind
Its image on my spirit, or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly - or the stars - howe`er it was
That dream was as that night wind - let it pass. I have been happy - tho` but in a dream
I have been happy - & I love the theme -
Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life -
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye more lovely things
Of Paradise & Love - & all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
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