I AM a dreamer both by night and day.
Among my life’s no rare felicities
Is this, that seldom painful dreams befall
My night’s repose, or perch on my arm-chair.
It is not only in our youth we men
Run after morning dreams fast-slipping by,
Or fain would solder broken images:
With thinner fancies Age essays the task,
And throws it down again, as one unmeet
And unbecoming; so he says; but I
Know better: ’tis because he tires and fails.
Some would affirm that dreams portend events
To come soon after, certainly to come:
I doubt it: yet may Fear and Hope create
Progeny ill-proportioned, in accord
Rarely; but Hope contends, tho’ Fear prevails;
And short-lived is that sickly progeny.
Sophia! whom I seldom call’d by name,
And trembled when I wrote it; O my friend
Severed so long from me! one morn I dreamt
That we were walking hand in hand thro’ paths
Slippery with sunshine: after many years
Had flown away, and seas and realms been crost,
And much (alas how much!) by both endured
We join’d our hands again and told our tale.
And now thy hand hath slipt away from mine,
And the cold marble cramps it: I dream on,
Dost thou dream too? and are our dreams the same?