A DREAM
       In visions of the dark night         I have dreamed of joy departed--     But a waking dreams of life and light         Hath left me broken-hearted.
       Ah! what is not a dream by day         To him whose eyes are cast     On things around him with a ray         Turned back upon the past?
       That holy dream--that holy dream,         While all the world were chiding,     Hath cheered me as a lovely beam         A lonely spirit guiding.
       What though that light, thro' storm and night,         So trembled from afar-     What could there be more purely bright         In Truths day-star?
  1827.