A WILDER’D BEING FROM MY BIRTH

A WILDER’D being from my birth,
 My spirit spurn’d control,
But now, abroad on the wide earth.
 Where wanderest thou, my soul?

In visions of the dark night
 I have dream’d of joy departed —
But a waking dream of life and light
 Hath left me broken-hearted.

And what is not a dream by day
 To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
 Turn’d back upon the past?

That holy dream — that holy dream,
 While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
 A lonely spirit guiding —

What tho’ that light, thro’ misty night
 So dimly shone afar —
“What could there be more purely bright
 In Truth’s day-star?