Dreams
Lines:34Movement:Romanticism
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!My spirit not awakening, till the beamOf an Eternity should bring the morrow.Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,'Twere better than the cold realityOf waking life, to him whose heart must be,And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.But should it be--that dream eternallyContinuing--as dreams have been to meIn my young boyhood--should it thus be given,'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.For I have revelled when the sun was brightI' the summer sky, in dreams of living lightAnd loveliness,--have left my very heartInclines of my imaginary apartFrom mine own home, with beings that have beenOf mine own thought--what more could I have seen?'Twas once--and only once--and the wild hourFrom my remembrance shall not pass--some powerOr spell had bound me--'twas the chilly windCame o'er me in the night, and left behindIts image on my spirit--or the moonShone on my slumbers in her lofty noonToo coldly--or the stars--howe'er it wasThat dream was that that night-wind--let it pass._I have been_ happy, though in a dream.I have been happy--and I love the theme:Dreams! in their vivid coloring of lifeAs in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strifeOf semblance with reality which bringsTo the delirious eye, more lovely thingsOf Paradise and Love--and all my own!--Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.