Dreams

Revere the mind, so full of mystery,Even in its passive hours.Behold it roam,With unseal'd eye and wide unfolded wing,While the tir'd body sleeps. Immortal guest!Our earthly nature bows itself to thee,Pressing its ear of flesh unto the sighOf thy perturbed visions, if perchanceIt hear some murmur of thy birth divine,Thy deathless heritage.Ah! dreams are dearTo those whom waking life hath surfeitedWith dull monotony. When the long dayWends to its close, and stealthy evening steals,Like some lean miser, greedily to snatchHope's wreath, that morning gave, is it not sweetTo close our eyelids, and to find the roseThat hides no thorn, the gold that knows no rust,Spreading where'er we tread?—Is it not sweetTo 'scape from stern reality, and glideWhere'er wild fancy marks her fairy way

Unlimited? If adverse fortune makeOur pillow stony, like the patriarch's bedAt lonely Bethel, do not pitying dreamsPlant a bright ladder for the angels' feet,And change our hard couch to the gate of heaven,And feed our souls on manna, till they loathTheir household bread?To traverse all unblam'dBroad realms, more bright than fabled Araby;To hear unearthly music; to inhaleAmbrosial fragrance from the spicy grovesThat never fade; to see the tyrant tombUnlock its treasure-valve, and freely yieldThe lov'd, the lost, back to our glad embrace;To catch clear glimpses of the streets of gold,And harpers, harping 'mid the eternal hills,These are the pastimes which the mind doth takeWhile its poor clay companion slumbers deep,Weary and worn.If thou in wintry climesShould'st roam unchang'd, thy very heart's blood chill'd,Lay but thy cold hand on a winged dream,And it shall bear thee straight with bounding pulseTo drink the sunbeams of thine own blue skies,Where the young cottage children freely fillTheir pinafores with flowers.Should ocean swell,Or the eternal mountains stretch their bars

'Tween thee and thy lov'd home, how strangely sweetTo touch the talisman of dreams, and sitAgain on thine own sofa, hand in handWith the most lov'd, thy children near thy side,At their untiring play, the shaded lampShedding its quiet ray, while now and thenThe clock upon the mantel-piece doth speak,To register the diamond sands of time,Made brighter by thy joys.So, may'st thou holdExistence in two hemispheres, and beHappy in both,—yea, in each separate zoneHave thine own castles, and revisit themWhene'er it pleaseth thee.But more than this,—If thou wilt seek the fellowship of dreams,And fearless yield thee to their loving sway,And make them friends, they'll swiftly bear thee upFrom star to star, and let thee hear the rushOf angel-wings, upon God's errands speeding,—And, while they make some silver cloud thy car,Will whispering tell thee that the unslumbering soulWears immortality upon its crest,And, by its very power to soar with them,Proves that it cannot die.