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 imaginings—apart

From mine own home, with beings that have been

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

'Twas once and only once and the wild hour

From my remembrance shall not pass—some power

Or spell had bound me—'twas the chilly wind

Came o'er me in the night and 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—and 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 and Love—and all our own!

Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

(1827)