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.
{From an earlier MS. Than in the book--ED.}