Page 109 of 172 DREAMS - Complete Poetical Works

DREAMS.

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

My spirit not awakening, till the beam

Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,

'Twere better than the cold reality

Of 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 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 revelled when the sun was bright

I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light

And loveliness,--have left my very heart

Inclines of my imaginary apart [1]

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 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 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 my own!--

Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

[Footnote 1: In climes of mine imagining apart?--Ed.]

* * * * *

"IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE."

_How often we forget all time, when lone

Admiring Nature's universal throne;

Her woods--her wilds--her mountains--the intense

Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_

I. In youth I have known one with whom the Earth

In secret communing held--as he with it,

In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:

Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit

From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth

A passionate light such for his spirit was fit--

And yet that spirit knew--not in the hour

Of its own fervor--what had o'er it power.

II. Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought

To a ferver [1] by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,

But I will half believe that wild light fraught

With more of sovereignty than ancient lore

Hath ever told--or is it of a thought

The unembodied essence, and no more

		"Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects. Extreme heat kills, and so extreme cold: extreme love breeds satiety, and so extreme hatred; and too violent rigor tempts chastity, as does too much license." George Chapman