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 cold reality

Of waking life to him whose heart shall 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 revell'd when the sun was bright

In the summer sky, in dreams of living light

And loveliness — have left my very heart

In climes of mine imagining — 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 remembering 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.

W. H. P.