Edgar Allan Poe — Dreams

 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 dull reality 

 Of waking life to him whose heart shall be, 

 And hath been ever, on the chilly 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 

 In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light, 

 And left unheedingly 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 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 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. 

 (1827-1828)