Dreams

1Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

2My spirit not awakening, till the beam

3Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

4Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,

5'Twere better than the cold reality

6Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,

7And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,

8A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.

9But should it be — that dream eternally

10Continuing — as dreams have been to me

11In my young boyhood — should it thus be given,

12'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.

13For I have revelled when the sun was bright

14I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light

15And loveliness, — have left my very heart

16Inclines of my imaginary apart

17From mine own home, with beings that have been

18Of mine own thought — what more could I have seen?

19'Twas once — and only once — and the wild hour

20From my remembrance shall not pass — some power

21Or spell had bound me — 'twas the chilly wind

22Came o'er me in the night, and left behind

23Its image on my spirit — or the moon

24Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon

25Too coldly — or the stars — howe'er it was

26That dream was that that night-wind — let it pass.

27_I have been_ happy, though in a dream.

28I have been happy — and I love the theme:

29Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life

30As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife

31Of semblance with reality which brings

32To the delirious eye, more lovely things

33Of Paradise and Love — and all my own! —

34Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.