Dreams

Let the dream go. Are there not other dreams
    In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight
That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams,
    And shoot the shadows through and through with light?
    What matters one lost vision of the night?
    Let the dream go!

Let the hope set. Are there not other hopes
    That yet shall rise like new stars in thy sky?
Not long a soul in sullen darkness gropes
    Before some light is lent it from on high;
    What folly to think happiness gone by!
    Let the hope set!

Let the joy fade. Are there not other joys,
    Like frost-bound bulbs, that yet shall start and bloom?
Severe must be the winter that destroys
    The hardy roots locked in their silent tomb.
    What cares the earth for her brief time of gloo...

O thou who giving helm and sword,
Gav'st, too, the rusting rain,
And starry dark's all tender dews
To blunt and stain:

Out of the battle I am sped,
Unharmed, yet stricken sore;
A living shape amid whispering shades
On Lethe's shore.

No trophy in my hands I bring,
To this sad, sighing stream,
The neighings and the trumps and cries
Were but a dream.

Traitor to life, of life betrayed:
O, of thy mercy deep,
A dream my all, the all I ask
Is sleep.

    Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
    Over wood and meadow, veiling
    Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing
        Sailor-like to foreign lands;
    And the north-wind overleaping
    Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping
    Wrecks of roses where the weeping
        Willows wring their helpless hands.

    Flared, like Titan torches flinging
        Flakes of flame and embers, springing
    From the vale the trees stand swinging
        In the moaning atmosphere;
    While in dead'ning-lands the lowing
    Of the cattle, sadder growing,
    Fills the sense to overflowing
        With the sorrow of the year.

    Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter
    Sings the brook in rippled meter
    Under boughs that lithely teeter
        Lorn birds, ...

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true,
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.

Fools laugh at dreamers, and the dreamers smile
In answer, if they any answer make:
They know that Saxon Alfred could not bake
The oaten cakes, but that he snatched his Isle
Back from the fierce and bloody-handed Dane.

And so, they leave the plodders to their gains -
Quit money changing for the student's lamp,
And tune the harp to gain thereby some camp,
Where what they learn is worth a kingdom's crown;
They fashion bows and arrows to bring down
The mighty truths which sail the upper air;
To them the facts which make the fools despair
Become familiar, and a thousand things
Tell them the secrets they refuse to kings.

The tropic day's redundant charms
    Cool twilight soothes away,
The sun slips down behind the palms
    And leaves the landscape grey.
    I want to take you in my arms
    And kiss your lips away!

I wake with sunshine in my eyes
    And find the morning blue,
A night of dreams behind me lies
    And all were dreams of you!
    Ah, how I wish the while I rise,
    That what I dream were true.

The weary day's laborious pace,
    I hasten and beguile
By fancies, which I backwards trace
    To things I loved erstwhile;
    The weary sweetness of your face,
    Your faint, illusive smile.

The silken softness of your hair
    Where faint bronze shadows are,
Your strangely slight and youthful air,
    No passions seem to ...

Good night! from music's softest spell
    Go to thy dreams: and in thy slumbers,
Fairies, with magic harp and shell,
    Sing o'er to thee thy own sweet numbers.

Good night! from Hope's intense desire
    Go to thy dreams: and may to-morrow,
Love with the sun returning, fire
    These evening mists of doubt and sorrow.

Good night! from hours of weary waking
    I'll to my dreams: still in my sleep
To feel the spirit's restless aching,
    And ev'n with eyelids closed, to weep.

You in the flesh and here,
Your very self! Now, wait!
One word! May I hope or fear?
Must I speak in love or hate?
Stay while I ruminate!

The fact and each circumstance
Dare you disown? Not you!
That vast dome, that huge dance,
And the gloom which overgrew
A possibly festive crew!

For why should men dance at all
Why women a crowd of both
Unless they are gay? Strange ball
Hands and feet plighting troth,
Yet partners enforced and loth!

Of who danced there, no shape
Did I recognize: thwart, perverse,
Each grasped each, past escape
In a whirl or weary or worse:
Man’s sneer met woman’s curse,

While he and she toiled as if
Their guardian set galley-slaves
To supple chained limbs grown stiff:
Unmanacled trulls...

Suggested by Sir Thomas Lawrence observing that we never dream of ourselves younger than we are.

Not in our dreams, not even in our dreams,
May we return to that sweet land of youth,
That home of hope, of innocence, and truth,
Which as we farther roam but fairer seems.
In that dim shadowy world, where the soul strays
When she has laid her mortal charge to rest,
We oft behold far future hours and days,
But ne'er live o'er the past, the happiest,
How oft will fancy's wild imaginings
Bear us in sleep to times and worlds unseen!
But ah! not e'en unfettered fancy's wings
Can lead us back to aught that we have been,
Or waft us to that smiling, sunny shore,
Which e'en in slumber we may tread no more.

    Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
    Scanning the mysteries of life and death
    I dreamed, though how impassable the space
    Of time between the present and the past!
    This was the vision that possessed my mind;
    I thought the weird and gusty days of March
    Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
    Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
    Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
    Of hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughs
    Of walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;
    And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;
    The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;
    The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;
    Night's weeping stars and all the pageantries
    Of awakened life had blossomed i...

When the world is fast asleep,
Along the midnight skies--
As though it were a wandering cloud--
The ghostly dream-ship flies.

An angel stands at the dream-ship's helm,
An angel stands at the prow,
And an angel stands at the dream-ship's side
With a rue-wreath on her brow.

The other angels, silver-crowned,
Pilot and helmsman are,
And the angel with the wreath of rue
Tosseth the dreams afar.

The dreams they fall on rich and poor;
They fall on young and old;
And some are dreams of poverty,
And some are dreams of gold.

And some are dreams that thrill with joy,
And some that melt to tears;
Some are dreams of the dawn of love,
And some of the old dead years.

On rich and poor alike they fall,
Alike on young and o...

I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost,
The splendid stillness of a living host;
Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o'er line.
Then my blood froze; for every face was mine.

Spirits with sunset plumage throng and pass,
Glassed darkly in the sea of gold and glass.
But still on every side, in every spot,
I saw a million selves, who saw me not.

I fled to quiet wastes, where on a stone,
Perchance, I found a saint, who sat alone;
I came behind: he turned with slow, sweet grace,
And faced me with my happy, hateful face.

I cowered like one that in a tower doth bide,
Shut in by mirrors upon every side;
Then I saw, islanded in skies alone
And silent, one that sat upon a throne.

His robe was bordered with rich rose and gold,
Green, purp...

Let the dream go.    Are there not other dreams
    In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight
That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams,
    And shoot the shadows through and through with light?
    What matters one lost vision of the night?
        Let the dream go!!

Let the hope set.    Are there not other hopes
    That yet shall rise like new stars in thy sky?
Not long a soul in sullen darkness gropes
    Before some light is lent it from on high;
    What folly to think happiness gone by!
        Let the hope set!

Let the joy fade.    Are there not other joys,
    Like frost-bound bulbs, that yet shall start and bloom?
Severe must be the winter that destroys
    The hardy roots locked in their silent tomb.
    What cares the earth for her ...

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
    Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
    For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
    A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapt
    For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
    My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
    For a dream's sake.

I have dreamed sweet dreams of a summer night,
When the moon was walking in cloudless light,
And my soul to the regions of Fancy sprung,
While the spirits of air their soft anthems sung,
Strains wafted down from those heavenly spheres
Which may not be warbled in waking ears;
More sweet than the voice of waters flowing,
Than the breeze over beds of violets blowing,
When it stirs the pines, and sultry day
Fans himself cool with their tremulous play.
On the sleeper's ear those rich notes stealing,
Speak of purer and holier feeling
Than man in his pilgrimage here below,
In the bondage of sin, can ever know.

    I heard in my slumbers the ceaseless roar
Of the sparkling waves, as they met the shore,
Till lulled by the surge of the moon-lit deep,
By the h...

The dream fell on him one calm summer night,
    Stealing amid the waving of the corn,
    That waited, golden, for the harvest morn--
The dream fell on him through the still moonlight.

The land lay silent, and the new mown hay
    Rested upon it like a dreamy sleep;
    And stealing softly o'er each yellow heap,
The night-breeze bore sweet incense-breath away.

The dew lay thick upon the unstirr'd leaves;
    The glow-worm glisten'd brightly as he pass'd;
    The thrush still chaunted, but the swallows fast
Hied to their home beneath lone cottage eaves.

He had been straying through the land that day,
    Dreaming of beauty as some dream of love;
    And all the earth beneath, the heaven above,
In mirror'd glory on his spirit lay.

And, a...

As some dusk mother shields from all alarms
    The tired child she gathers to her breast,
The brunette Night doth fold me in her arms,
    And hushes me to perfect peace and rest.
Her eyes of stars shine on me, and I hear
Her voice of winds low crooning on my ear.
O Night, O Night, how beautiful thou art!
Come, fold me closer to thy pulsing heart.

The day is full of gladness, and the light
    So beautifies the common outer things,
I only see with my external sight,
    And only hear the great world's voice which rings
But silently from daylight and from din
The sweet Night draws me - whispers, "Look within!"
And looking, as one wakened from a dream,
I see what is - no longer what doth seem.

The Night says, "Listen!" and upon my ear
  ...

If life were but a dream, my Love,
And death the waking time;
If day had not a beam, my Love,
And night had not a rhyme,--
A barren, barren world were this
Without one saving gleam;
I 'd only ask that with a kiss
You 'd wake me from the dream.

If dreaming were the sum of days,
And loving were the bane;
If battling for a wreath of bays
Could soothe a heart in pain,--
I 'd scorn the meed of battle's might,
All other aims above
I 'd choose the human's higher right,
To suffer and to love!