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Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! |
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My spirit not awakening, till the beam |
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Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. |
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Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ' |
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Twere better than the cold reality |
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Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, |
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And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, |
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A chaos of deep passion, from his birth. |
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But should it be - that dream eternally |
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Continuing - as dreams have been to me |
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In my young boyhood - should it thus be given, ' |
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Twere folly still to hope for higher |
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Heaven. For |
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I have revell'd, when the sun was bright |
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I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light |
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And loveliness, - have left my very heart |
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In climes of my imagining, apart |
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From mine own home, with beings that have been |
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Of mine own thought - what more could |
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I have seen? ' |
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Twas once - and only once - and the wild hour |
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From my remembrance shall not pass - some power |
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Or spell had bound me - 'twas the chilly wind |
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Came o'er me in the night, and left behind |
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Its image on my spirit - or the moon |
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Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon |
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Too coldly - or the stars - howe'er it was |
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That dream was as that night-wind - let it pass. |
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I have been happy, tho' in a dream. |
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I have been happy - and |
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I love the theme: |
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Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life, |
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As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife |
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Of semblance with reality, which brings |
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To the delirious eye, more lovely things |
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Of Paradise and |
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Love - and all our own! |
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Than young |
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Hope in his sunniest hour hath known. |
